Wining  dept. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIFT    OF 


fl 


{ 


f , 


J 


THE 


COAL  MINES 


OF   THE 


WESTERN   COAST 


OF   THE 


UNITED  STATES. 


BY 

W.    A.    GOODYEAR, 

MINING  ENGINEER. 


SAN  FRANCISCO: 
A.  L.  BANCKOFT   &   COMPANY. 

1877. 


/  u 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1877, 

BY  W.  A.  GOODYEAR, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE. 


IN  writing  this  little  book,  the  object  which  I  have 
had  in  view  has  been  not  so  much  to  discuss  the  geo- 
logical character  of  the  Pacific  Coast  coal  fields  as  to 
give,  what  has  never  yet  been  published,  a  full  and  in- 
telligible description  of  the  mines  themselves  as  they 
exist  to-day .  To  what  extent  I  have  succeeded  in  accom- 
plishing this,  the  reader  must  judge. 

I  regret  that  my  acquaintance  with  the  mines  of 
British  Columbia,  which  are  for  the  most  part  confined 
to  Vancouver's  Island,  is  not  sufficient  to  justify  me  in 
attempting  to  give  any  particular  account  of  them.  I 
have,  therefore,  excluded  them  from  this  work,  although 
they  are  of  no  little  importance,  and  are  rapidly  increas- 
ing their  annual  production. 

The  volume,  in  its  present  form,  is  mainly  the  result 
of  my  own  work,  travels  and  observations,  extending 
over  a  period  of  nine  or  ten  years,  during  which  period 
it  is  safe  to  say  I  have  done  more  work  in,  and  have 
been  personally  more  familiar  with  the  actual  condition 
and  workings  of,  the  various  coal  mines  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  than  any  other  engineer  has  done. 

In  addition  to  this,  however,  I  am  also  greatly  in- 
debted, as  the  text  itself  will  show,  to  the  labors  of  my 
friend  and  former  partner,  Mr.  Theodore  A.  Blake,  M. 


188144 


4  PREFACE. 

E.,  who  is  even  more  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
mines  of  Washington  Territory  than  I  have  been  myself, 
and  whose  early  investigations  of  the  Seattle  coal  field, 
in  particular,  were  exceediDgly  thorough  and  valuable,. 
I  desire,  furthermore,  to  express  my  obligations  es- 
pecially to  Mr.  P.  B.  Cornwall,  President  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Coal  Company;  and,  in  general,  to  the  officers 
and  superintendents  of  the  other  coal  companies  through- 
out the  country,  for  the  liberality  with  which  they  have 
not  only  furnished  all  such  information  as  I  have  di- 
rectly asked  from  them,  but  also  freely  placed  at  my 
disposal  every  other  facility  for  acquiring  a  full  and 
thorough  knowledge  of  their  respective  mines. 

W.  A.  GOODYEAR. 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March,  1877. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE 3 

CHAPTEE   I. 
CALIFORNIA : 

THE  MT.  DIABLO  COAL  FIELD 6 

The  Clark  Vein 12 

The  Little  Vein 25 

Section  of  Strata  on  Line  of  Clayton  Tunnel 27 

The  Black  Diamond  Bed 30 

Faults  and  Disturbances 36 

Ventilation 44 

Haulage,  Storage  and  Transportation 48 

Pumping  and  Drainage 52 

Peacock  and  San  Francisco  Mines 55 

Central  Mine 56 

Empire  Mine 61 

Teutonia  Mine 64 

Rancho  de  Los  Meganos 66 

THE  CORRAL  HOLLOW  COAL  FIELD 69 

THE  LIVERMORE  MINE 72 

OTHER  COAL  LOCALITIES   73 

CHAPTER   II. 
OREGON : 

THE  Coos  BAY  MINES  * 83 

The  Eastport  Mine 86 

The  Newport  Mine 88 

New  Mine 90 

MISTAKES  AND  FAILURES  . .  92 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   III.      . 

PACK: 
WASHINGTON  TERRITORY : 

.     BELLINGHAM  BAY  MINE <j<) 

TALBOT  MINE   103 

RENTON  MINE 104 

SEATTLE  COAL  AND  TRANSPORTATION  COMPANY'S  MINKS  106 

PUYALLUP  CAKING  COAL 1 28 

CHAPTER   IV. 
MISCELLANEOUS: 

COST  OF  PRODUCTION  AT  MT.  DIABLO  MINE:; 130 

STATISTICS  OF  PRODUCTION  AND  TRADE 132 

RELATIVE  VALUES  OF  DIFFERENT  COALS 140 

CONCLUSION..  .  151 


" 

OF  THE 

NIVERSiTY 


CHAPTEE  I. 
CALIFORNIA. 

THE  coal  fields  of  the  western  coast  of  North  America 
are  limited  in  extent,  and  of  comparatively  recent  geo- 
logical origin.  They  are  none  of  them  of  the  Carbonif- 
erous Age,  and,  indeed,  so  far  as  yet  known,  none  of 
them  date  back  of  the  Cretaceous  Period.  They  mostly 
furnish  a  non-caking,  bituminous  coal,  which  belongs  to 
the  class  of  lignites  or  brown  coals.  Vancouver's  Island, 
however,  produces  caking  coal;  and  some  caking  coal 
of  good  quality  has  also  been  found  in  Washington  Ter- 
ritory. Small  quantities  of  anthracite  have  been  found 
on  Queen  Charlotte's  Island,  and  probably  also  in  Wash- 
ington Territory.  But  no  workable  mine  of  anthracite 
has  ever  been  discovered  on  the  Coast,  and  the  little 
that  has  been  found  has  always  proved,  on  investigation, 
to  have  been  the  result  of  local  and  special  metamor- 
phisrn.  Of  the  two  States  and  one  Territory  which 
border  the  Pacific  Ocean  between  Mexico  and  British 
Columbia,  Washington  Territory  is  by  far  the  most  lib- 
erally supplied  with  coal.  Oregon  comes  next,  and  Cali- 
fornia last.  In  fact,  California  is  decidedly  unfortunate 
in  the  extent  and  the  character  of  her  coal  fields.  For, 
although  it  is  easy  to  find  coal  at  many  localities  in  the 
Coast  Range  from  one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other,  as 
well  as  at  certain  points  in  the  western  foot-hills  of  the 


6  COAL  MINES. 

Sierra  Nevada;  yet  it  generally  happens  either  that  its 
quality  is  poor,  or  its  quantity  is  small,  or  else  that  it 
is  situated  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains  so  far  from 
market  that  the  cost  of  transportation  alone  would  far 
exceed  the  value  of  the  coal. 

I  begin  this  treatise,  however,  without  further  prelude, 
by  giving  a  description  of  the  only  field  within  the  State 
where  coal  has  hitherto  been  profitably  mined,  viz. : 

THE  MT.  DIABLO  COAL  FIELD. 

The  extent  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  field  may  be  stated 
in  broad  terms  to  be  some  ten  or  twelve  miles  along  the 
line  of  outcrop  of  the  beds  running  through  the  northern 
part  of  township  1  north,  range  1  east,  and  the  north- 
western and  central  portions  of  township  1  north, 
range  2  east,  Mt.  Diablo  meridian. 

The  details  of  this  line  of  outcrop  are,  in  many 
places,  very  irregular,  and  especially  so  in  the  western 
portion  of  the  field,  where  the  hills  are  high,  and  the 
canons  are  deep  and  steep.  But  its  general  course  may 
be  described  as  follows:  It  is  curvilinear,  and  convex 
towards  the  north.  Beginning  in  the  north-east  quarter 
of  section  7,  township  1  north,  range  1  east,  it  runs  at 
first  north-easterly,  but  curves  rapidly  to  the  east  till  it 
reaches  a  point  in  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  8, 
from  whence  it  follows  for  almost  three  miles  a  nearly 
true  east  course  across  the  northern  portions  of  sections 
8,  9  and  10,  and  close  to  the  northern  edges  of  these 
sections.  But  in  going  easterly  across  section  11,  it 
bends  to  the  south,  and  crossing  the  south  half  of  sec- 
tion 12,  enters  the  south-west  quarter  of  section  7  in 


CALIFORNIA.  1 

the  adjoining  township.  From  thence  it  follows  an 
irregular  south-easterly  course  across  the  north-western 
and  central  portions  of  the  township  as  far  as  the 
"Brentwood  Mines,"  upon  the  Rancho  de  Los  Me- 
ganos,  and  near  the  line  between  sections  22  and  27  of 
township  1  north,  range  2  east.  Beyond  this  locality 
to  the  south-east,  the  beds  have  not  been  traced  with  any 
certainty.  The  dip,  throughout,  is  in  a  northerly  di- 
rection; but  it  varies  in  amount  at  different  localities 
from  12°  or  15°  up  to  32°  or  33°,  being  generally  highest 
in  the  western  portion  of  the  field. 

A  range  of  high  hills,  whose  culminating  points  on 
sections  8  and  9  reach  altitudes  of  fifteen  hundred  to 
seventeen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  runs  in  a  general 
east  and  west  direction  across  the  northern  half  of 
township  1  north,  range  1  east,  and  is  separated  by  a 
narrow  valley  on  the  south  from  the  still  higher  mount- 
ainous region  which  culminates  in  the  double  summit 
of  Mt.  Diablo  itself,  three  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
fifty-six  feet  in  height. 

In  going  east,  however,  from  section  9,  the  hills  di- 
minish in  height,  and  following  the  line  of  the  coal 
beds  south-easterly  across  the  next  township,  they 
gradually  fall  lower  and  lower,  till  we  reach  the  level 
of  the  valley  at  the  "  Brentwood  Mines,"  which  are  sit- 
uated in  the  edge  of  the  San  Joaquin  plain,  at  an  alti- 
tude of  only  between  one  hundred  and  two  hundred 
feet  above  tide-water.  In  its  higher  portions,  this 
range  of  hills  is  deeply  scored  by  canons  in  all  direc- 
tions, and  it  is  among  these  canons  in  the  northern 
slopes  of  the  range,  that  the  hitherto  paying  mines  are 
located. 


8  COAL  MINES. 

The  strata  have  been  considerably  disturbed  at  nu- 
merous localities  by  faults  of  greater  or  less  magnitude; 
and  the  coal  beds  themselves  are  subject,  within  short 
distances,  to  so  great  variations  in  thickness  and  quality 
of  coal,  as  well  as  in  the  character  of  the  rocks  which 
inclose  them,  that  it  is  not  possible  with  present  knowl- 
edge to  certainly  recognize  any  single  bed  in  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  field  as  being  the  same  with  any  one  of 
those  which  have  been  so  extensively  worked  in  the 
western  portion. 

By  the  phrase,  ' '  Mt.  Diablo  coal  field,"  as  here  used, 
must  be  understood  not  merely  the  actually  productive 
region,  but  the  whole  extent  of  the  belt  through  which 
there  has  been  found  some  definite  evidence  of  proba- 
bility that  the  beds  were  once  continuous,  or  nearly  so, 
and  within  which  sufficient  discoveries  have  been  made 
to  lead  to  the  expenditure  of  any  considerable  sums  of 
money  in  explorations  and  attempts  to  develop  new 
mines.  The  area  within  which  the  mines  have  hitherto 
been  profitably  worked,  however,  is  far  more  limited  in 
extent.  It  lies  among  the  higher  hills  in  the  western 
portion  of  the  belt  above  described,  and  includes  a  dis- 
tance of  only  about  two  miles  and  a  half  along  the 
strike  of  the  beds,  from  the  western  limits  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Company's  workings  in  the  north-east  quarter 
of  section  7,  where  the  beds  either  split  up  and  run  out, 
or  become  too  much  crushed  and  broken  to  pay  for 
working,  to  the  most  eastern  limits  of  the  Pittsburg 
Company's  workings  in  the  south-west  quarter  of  section 
3,  and  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  10,  where  they 
are  stopped  by  the  wall  of  a  great  fault  which  inter- 
venes between  them  and  Stewart's  mine  on  the  east. 


CALIFORNIA.  9 

The  "Central  (i.  e.,  Stewart's)  Mine  "is  not  here  in- 
cluded within  the  profitably  productive  limits,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  while  it  has  produced  considerable 
coal,  its  shipments  having  been  sometimes  as  high  as  a 
thousand  tons  per  month,  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
its  production  has  been  at  a  loss,  instead  of  a  profit,  to 
its  owners. 

Within  the  productive  limits  above  indicated,  the 
chief  openings  of  the  mines  as  well  as  the  dwellings  of 
the  miners,  and  other  buildings,  are,  owing  to  the  topog- 
raphy of  the  country,  concentrated  at  two  considerable 
villages,  about  a  mile  apart.  The  first  of  these  villages, 
known  as  "Nortonville,"  is  located  on  the  south-east 
quarter  of  section  5. 

The  second  one,  known  as  "  Somersville,"  is  chiefly 
on  the  south-east  quarter  of  section  4,  township  1  north, 
range  1  east.  Each  village  is  in  the  bottom  of  a  sort  of 
amphitheatre  among  the  hills,  and  at  the  head  of  a  deep 
canon,  which  runs  northerly  some  three  miles  to  the  edge 
of  the  San  Joaquin  plain,  from  which  point  the  distance 
north  across  the  plain  to  the  river  is  also  in  each  case 
about  three  miles.  Down  each  of  these  canons  there 
runs  a  railroad  of  the  ordinary  gauge  (4  feet  8J  inches) 
to  points  of  shipment  on  the  San  Joaquin  river,  just 
above  its  junction  with  the  Sacramento.  Each  railroad 
is  therefore  about  six  miles  in  length,  the  Black  Dia- 
mond Railroad  running  to  the  Black  Diamond  Landing 
(otherwise  known  as  New  York  Landing),  and  the  rail- 
road from  Somersville  (called  the  "Pittsburg  Railroad") 
running  to  Pittsburg  Landing,  some  two  or  three  miles 
further  up  the  river.  The  height  of  the  villages  them- 
selves above  tide-water  ranges  from  seven  hundred  to 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  feet. 


10  COAL  MINES. 

Iii  the  north-west  corner  of  the  south-east  quarter  of 
section  5,  a  round-topped  hill  rises  to  a  height  of  one 
thousand  three  hundred  and  forty-eight  feet  above  low 
water,  and  near  the  middle  of  the  line  between  the 
north-west  and  south-west  quarters  of  section  4,  a  sim- 
ilar hill  rises  to  a  height  of  about  one  thousand  five 
hundred  feet.  Each  of  these  two  hills  (between  which 
runs  the  canon  of  the  Black  Diamond  Railroad)  is  con- 
nected with  the  hills  to  the  south,  in  which  lie  the 
mines,  by  a  saddle  some  three  hundred  or  four  hun- 
dred feet  lower  than  its  own  summit — the  saddle  be- 
tween Nortonville  and  Somersville  being  some  three 
or  four  hundred  feet  higher  than  the  village  of  Norton- 
ville itself. 

There  are  few  points  in  the  hills  containing  the  mines 
which  rise  to  a  greater  height  than  the  higher  of  the  two 
hills  just  described.  At  Nortonville,  as  well  as  at  Som- 
ersville, the  canon,  at  the  head  of  which  stands  the  vil- 
lage, forks  into  numerous  branches  which  spread  upwards 
in  all  directions  to  the  south,  south-east  and  south-west 
among  the  hills,  thus  cutting  up  the  surface  of  the  min- 
ing ground  by  rough  and  precipitous  gulches,  often  two 
hundred  to  three  hundred  feet  in  depth,  so  that  the  line 
of  outcrop  of  the  beds,  as  already  stated,  is  at  this  locality 
very  irregular  in  detail  and  deeply  indented  by  the 
gulches.  The  rocks  which  inclose  the  mines  consist  of 
unaltered,  grayish  and  reddish  silicious  sandstone, 
generally  not  very  hard,  alternating  with  occasional 
strata  of  rather  soft  clay-rock,  the  whole  belonging  to 
the  latest  formations  of  the  cretaceous  period. 

The  coal  beds,  which  have  been  profitably  worked  to 
a  greater  or  less  extent,  are  three  in  number,  and  are 


CALIFORNIA.  11 

known  respectively  as  the  "  Clark  Vein,"  'the  "Little 
Vein,"  and  the  "  Black  Diamond  Vein."  Of  these,  the 
Clark  Vein  is  the  highest  in  stratigraphical  position; 
next  in  order  below  it  comes  the  Little  Vein;  while  the 
Black  Diamond  Vein  is  the  lowest,  and  underlies  both 
the  others.  The  beds  lie  nearly  parallel  with  each 
other,  all  dipping  to  the  north;  and  at  the  immediate 
localities  of  the  villages,  both  of  Nortonville  and  Somers- 
ville,  the  amount  of  dip  is  from  30°  to  32°. 

In  the  Clayton  tunnel,  at  Nortonville,  the  level  dis- 
tance from  the  floor  of  the  Clark  Vein  south  to  the  roof 
of  the  Black  Diamond  Vein  is  six  hundred  and  ninety- 
six  feet,  and  the  dip  here  being  about  31°,  it  follows 
that  the  total  thickness  of  the  strata,  including  the 
Little  Vein,  between  the  Clark  and  Black  Diamond 
Veins  is,  at  this  locality,  about  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
nine  feet.  At  certain  points  the  level  distance  between 
the  beds  is  somewhat  less  than  it  is  here,  while  in  other 
places  it  is  considerably  greater.  This  is  due  mainly 
to  changes  in  the  degree  of  dip  of  the  beds;  though  it 
is  more  than  probable  that  the  actual  thickness  of  the 
strata  between  them  also  varies  somewhat  at  different 
localities. 

All  the  valuable  mining  ground  here  for  a  distance  of 
nearly  two  miles  and  a  half  is  now  owned  and  controlled 
by  three  different  companies,  viz. :  the  Black  Diamond 
Coal  Company,  the  Union  Coal  Company,  and  the  Pitts- 
burg  Coal  Company.  The  Black  Diamond  Company 
owns  the  south  half  of  section_5,  the  north  half  of  section 
8,  and  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  9.  The  Union 
Company  owns  the  south-west  quarter  of  section  4,  and 
used  to  lease  and  mine  the  coal  also  in  an  adjoining 


12  COAL  MINES, 

strip  to  the  east,  between  six  hundred  and  seven  hun- 
dred feet  wide,  on  the  south-east  quarter'of  section  4.  The 
Pittsburg  Company  owns  the  balance  of  the  south- 
east quarter  of  section  4,  together  with  an  additional 
tract  which  covers  portions  of  the  north-east  quarter  of 
section  9,  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  10,  and  the 
south-west  quarter  of  section  3. 

THE  CLARK  VEIN. 

The  only  bed  which  has  been  worked  continuously 
throughout  the  whole  distance  controlled  by  these  com- 
panies is  the  Clark  Vein.  This  bed  varies  in  thickness 
at  different  points  from  a  minimum  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
inches  to  a  maximum  of  four  feet  and  a  half,  or  a  trifle 
over.  The  greatest  variations  in  the  thickness  of  this 
bed,  however,  do  not  occur  within  the  limits  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Company's  property,  the  minimum  thickness  in 
that  property  being  twenty-eight  or  twenty-nine  inches, 
and  the  maximum  thirty-eight  or  thirty-nine;  while  the 
average  for  the  whole  mile  of  the  Clark  Vein  controlled 
by  this  company,  and  as  deep  as  the  workings  have  yet 
extended,  is  thirty-two  or  thirty-three  inches.  On  going 
east  from  the  section  line,  however,  into  the  south-west 
quarter  of  section  4  the  bed  grows  rapidly  thinner,  and 
for  a  considerable  distance  in  the  western  portion  of  the 
Union  Company's  ground  its  thickness  ranges  under 
twenty-four  inches,  being  sometimes  as  low  as  eighteen. 
But  in  the  eastern  portion  of  the  Union  mine  it  again 
increases  in  thickness,  and  maintains  across  the  south- 
east quarter  of  section  4  a  thickness  of  from  three  to 
four  feet,  reaching  its  maximum  in  the  Pittsburg  Com- 


CALIFORNIA.  13 

pany's  ground  not  far  from  the  line  between  sections  3 
and  4,  where,  as  already  stated,  it  is  sometimes  a  little 
over  four  and  a  half  feet  thick.  The  Clark  Vein  is  gen- 
erally free  from  interstratification  of  slate  or  dirt  of  any 
kind,  and  with  the  exception  of  a  certain  portion  in  the 
western  part  of  the  Black  Diamond  Company's  mines 
near  the  south-west  corner  of  section  5,  where,  for  sev- 
eral hundred  feet  it  has  been  rather  badly  crushed  by 
movements  and  bendings  of  the  strata,  the  whole  of  it 
makes  good,  clean  coal.  Its  roof  and  floor  are  also  gen- 
erally very  good,  so  that  it  requires  but  little  timbering. 
The  floor  is  everywhere  good  solid  sandstone,  and  the 
roof  throughout  the  Black  Diamond  Company's  mines, 
and  in  ,the  western  portion  of  the  Union  Company's 
ground,  with  few  and  small  exceptions,  consists  also  of 
the  same  material.  But  where  the  coal  begins  to  in- 
crease in  thickness  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Union 
mine,  a  thin  stratum  of  rather  soft  clay  rock  makes  its 
appearance  on  top  of  the  coal  and  between  it  and  the 
overlying  sandstone.  Further  east,  this  clay  stratum  is 
nearly  continuous,  forming,  generally,  the  immediate 
roof  of  the  coal  throughout  the  Pittsburg  Company's 
ground,  and  seeming,  as  a  rule,  to  be  thickest  where 
the  coal  is  thickest.  It  reaches,  in  places,  a  maximum 
thickness  of  from  two  to  two  and  a  half  feet,  and  as  it 
separates  easy  from  the  overlying  sandstone,  it  causes, 
of  course,  some  extra  trouble  and  expense,  and  occa- 
sionally more  or  less  danger  in  mining  the  coal.  •  But 
it  is  nothing  very  serious. 

The  chief  openings  to  the  Clark  Vein  are,  first,  the 
Black  Diamond  Company's  openings,  which  are  three. 
Of  these  the  first  is  what  is  known  as  the  "little  slope," 


14  COAL  MINES. 

or  the  "hoisting  slope;"  the  second  is  the  "Mount 
Hope  slope,"  and  the  third  is  the  Black  Diamond  shaft. 
Second,  the  Union  Company's  slope.  Third,  the  slope 
of  the  old  "  Eureka  Company,"  which  formerly  owned 
a  tract  about  eleven  hundred  feet  wide  immediately  ad- 
joining the  Union  Company  on  the  east,  and  now 
belonging  to  the  Pittsburg  Company.  Fourth,  the 
Pittsburg  slope.  Fifth,  the  "Independent  shaft,"  sit- 
uated on  ground  formerly  owned  by  the  old  "Inde- 
pendent Company,"  but  now  also  belonging  to  the 
Pittsburg  Company. 

The  mouth  of  the  "hoisting  slope"  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Company  is  situated  in  the  bottom  of  a  deep 
ravine  which  runs  up  southerly  and  south- westerly 
among  the  hills,  and  is  eight  hundred  and  thirty-three 
feet  above  low  water  in  the  San  Joaquin  river.  This 
slope,  which  is  ninety-eight  feet  long,  goes  down  to  the 
south  with  a  pitch  of  about  35°  through  the  strata  over- 
lying the  Clark  Vein.  From  its  foot,  a  level  gangway, 
known  as  the  "Clark  Vein  Main  Gangway,"  has  been 
driven  east  and  west  on  the  Clark  Vein  throughout  the 
company's  property,  and  is  over  a  mile  in  length  across 
the  southern  part  of  section  5.  The  slope  is  furnished 
with  a  double  track,  and  a  steam  hoisting  engine  whose 
cylinder  is  14"X30".  Through  this  slope  Las  been 
hoisted  nearly  all  the  coal  which  has  come  from  the 
Clark  Vein  within  the  limits  of  the  Black  Diamond 
Company's  property  above  the  level  of  the  Clark  Vein 
main  gangway,  besides  all  the  coal  which  has  come 
from  the  Black  Diamond  Vein  through  the  Clayton 
tunnel. 

The  mouth  of  the  "Mount  Hope  slope"  is  situated 


CALIFORNIA.  15 

about  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet  .north-easterly  from 
that  of  the  "hoisting  slope,"  and  is  seven  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  feet  above  low  water.  The  slope  is  two 
hundred  and  ninety-three  feet  long  to  the  Clark  Vein, 
and  has  an  inclination,  or  pitch,  of  37°  15'  to  the  south. 
From  its  foot,  the  "Mount  Hope  Gangway"  runs  east 
and  west  on  the  Clark  Vein  through  the  property,  and 
is  also  over  a  mile  in  length.  The  height  of  the  "lift" 
between  the  Mount  Hope  and  the  Clark  Vein  main 
gangways  (i.  e.,  the  slope  distance  measured  on  the 
dip  of  the  coal  bed  from  centre  to  centre  of  these  gang- 
ways), is  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Mount  Hope  slope  about 
three  hundred  and  six  feet.  But  in  the  western  portion 
of  the  property  the  height  of  this  "lift"  increases  con- 
siderably, owing  to  a  decrease  in  the  dip  of  the  bed, 
the  gangways  being  driven  nearly  level,  or  with  only  so 
much  grade,  about  one  in  one  hundred,  as  is  necessary 
in  order  to  drain  them,  and  to  facilitate  the  hauling  out 
of  the  loaded  cars.  The  Mount  Hope  slope  is  provided 
with  a  double  track  and  a  hoisting  engine,  with  cylinder 
14"X30".  From  a  point  on  the  Mount  Hope  gang- 
way eighty-five  feet  east  of  the  foot  of  the  Mount  Hope 
slope,  a  double  tracked  counter-slope  runs  down  on 
the  coal  with  a  pitch  of  about  31°  to  the  north,  a  dis- 
tance of  three  hundred  and  seventy-seven  feet  to  the 
"Lower  Mount  Hope  Gangway,"  which  is  the  lowest 
gangway  yet  opened  on  the  Clark  Vein  by  the  Black 
Diamond  Company.  The  coal  from  this  lower  gang- 
way, until  they  began  to  hoist  through  the  shaft,  was 
hoisted  up  the  counter-slope  by  an  underground  hoist- 
ing engine  16"X30",  placed  at  the  head  of  the  counter- 
slope,  and  supplied  with  steam  from  the  boilers  at  the 
surface  by  a  pipe  leading  down  the  Mount  Hope  slope. 


16  COAL  MINES. 

The  Black  Diamond  shaft  is  distant  about  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty  feet  in  a  direction  a  little  north  of 
west  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mount  Hope  slope.  It  is 
a  vertical  shaft,  heavily  and  well  timbered,  and  meas- 
ures twenty-two  feet  four  inches  by  eleven  feet  ten 
inches  from  out  to  out,  being  divided  into  three  com- 
partments, viz. :  one  pumping  compartment  five  by  nine 
feet,  and  two  hoisting  compartments,  each  six  by  nine 
feet  in  the  clear,  inside  of  timbers.  The  mouth  of  the 
shaft  is  eight  hundred  and  thirty-nine  feet  above  low 
water,  and  its  present  depth  to  the  level  of  the  lower 
Mount  Hope  gangway  is  four  hundred  and  fifteen  feet, 
and  the  foot  of  the  shaft  is  about  fifty  feet  south  of  this 
gangway.  The  shaft  is  furnished  with  two  iron,  double- 
decked  safety  cages,  each  cage  raising  two  loaded  mine 
cars  at  a  time,  and  each  car  containing  about  a  ton  of 
coal.  The  hoisting  power  for  this  shaft  consists  of  a 
pair  of  large  steam  engines  working  directly  on  the 
winding  shaft,  each  engine  having  a  twenty-four  inch 
cylinder,  and  five  foot  stroke.  The  cables  used  here 
are  flat  wire  ropes  winding  on  spools. 

The  mouth  of  the  Union  Company's  slope  is  situated 
very  close  to  the  line  between  the  south-east  and  south- 
west quarters  of  section  4,  and  is  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-six  feet  above  low  water.  The  slope  itself  is  four 
hundred  and  seventeen  feet  long  to  the  Clark  Vein,  with 
a  pitch  of  37°  45'  to  the  south.  From  its  foot  a  gang- 
way runs  east  and  west  on  the  Clark  Vein  through  this 
company's  property.  From  a  point  on  this  gangway 
two  hundred  and  forty-four  feet  west  of  the  foot  of  this 
slope,  a  counter-slope  runs  down  on  the  bed  with  a  pitch 
of  28°  23'  to  the  north,  three  hundred  and  four  feet  to  a 


CALIFORNIA.  17 

second  gangway,  and  then  about  three,  linn dred  feet 
further  to  the  third  or  lowest  gangway  in  this  mine. 
Each  of  these  slopes  was  worked  by  a  steam  hoisting 
engine  placed  at  its  head,  the  underground  engine  at 
the  head  of  the  counter-slope  being  supplied  with  steam 
from  boilers  at  the  surface  as  in  the  case  of  the  Mt. 
Hope  and  its  counter-slope. 

The  old  Eureka  slope  was  about  two  hundred  and 
ninety  feet  long,  with  an  average  pitch  of  about  43°  15' 
to  the  south.  It  was  furnished  with  a  three-rail  track 
and  a  hoisting  engine,  10"X24".  Its  mouth  is  seven 
hundred  and  eighty-six  feet  above  low  water.  There 
was  also  a  counter-slope  fifty-five  feet  west  of  the  foot 
of  the  surface-slope  which  went  down  some  six  hundred 
feet  or  more,  and  was  furnished  with  a  double  track  and 
a  hoisting  engine,  12"X24" '.  The  whole  of  that  portion 
of  the  Clark  Vein  originally  owned  by  the  Eureka  Com- 
pany has  already,  however,  been  worked  out  and  ex- 
hausted, and  these  openings  are  therefore  now  'aban- 
doned. 

The  Pittsburg  slope  is  in  the  southeast  cornsr  of  sec- 
tion 4.  Its  mouth  is  eight  hundred  and  thirty-eight 
feet  above  low  water.  It  goes  down  in  a  direction, 
somewhat  to  the  west  of  south,  with  a  pitch  of  25°  50'r 
and  is  about  two  hundred  and  forty  feet  long  to  the 
Clark  Vein.  It  is  furnished  with  double  track  and 
steam  hoisting  engine,  12"X24".  From  its  foot  a  gang- 
way runs  both  ways  on  the  bed  through  the  company's 
property.  From  a  point  on  this  gangway  twenty-five 
feet  west  of  the  foot  of  the  surface-slope,  a  counter- 
slope  runs  down  on  the  dip  about  eight  hundred  feet 
with  a  pitch  of  about  31°  30'  to  the  lowest  gangway  in 


18  COAL  MINES. 

the  mine.  There  are,  however,  two  intermediate  gang- 
ways, one  at  a  point  three  hundred  feet  and  the  other 
at  a  point  five  hundred  and  seventy-nine  feet  down  from 
the  head  of  the  counter-slope.  The  slope  is  double- 
tracked  and  is  worked  by  a  steam  engine,  14"X30",  at 
its  head. 

In  the  eastern  part  of  this  mine  and  distant  nearly  a 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  foot  of  the  surface-slope, 
there  is  another  counter-slope  running  down  from  the 
upper  gangway  to  the  second  one.  This  slope  is  also 
double-tracked  and  furnished  with  a  hoisting  engine. 
Both  the  underground  engines  are  furnished  with  steam 
through  pipes  conducting  it  from  the  boilers  at  the 
mouth  of  the  surface-slope. 

The  Independent  shaft  is  a  vertical  shaft  sunk  by  the 
now  defunct  Independent  Company  about  the  year 
1865,  at  a  point  a  little  south-west  of  the  centre  of  the 
north-east  quarter  of  the  south-east  quarter  of  section  4. 
The  size  of  this  shaft  from  out  to  out  is  nearly  sixteen 
feet  by  ten,  and  it  is  divided  inside  the  timbers  into 
three  compartments,  viz. :  one  pumping  compartment, 
three  feet  by  seven  feet  eight  inches,  and  two  hoisting 
compartments,  each  four  feet  by  se.ven  feet  eight  inches 
in  the  clear.  Its  mouth  is  seven  hundred  and  nineteen 
feet  above  low  water,  and  it  is  seven  hundred  and  ten 
feet  deep. 

Some  curious  engineering  was  displayed  in  connection 
with  the  sinking  of  this  shaft.  It  was  represented,  for 
example,  at  the  time  of  its  commencement,  that  it  would 
strike  the  Clark  Vein  at  a  depth  of  from  four  hundred  to 
four  hundred  and  fifty  feet;  yet  the  position  of  the  Clark 
Vein,  and  the  amount  of  its  dip  in  this  vicinity,  were  at 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


CALIFORNIA.  19 

thai  time  already  well  known,  and  a  .little  simple  meas- 
urement and  computation  would  have  demonstrated  then 
as  well  as  now  the  fact  that  a  vertical  shaft  to  the  Clark 
Vein  at  that  locality,  must  be  in  the  neighborhood  of 
nine  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  depth  instead  of  four  hun- 
dred or  four  hundred  and  fifty.  However,  they  went 
down  seven  hundred  and  ten  feet,  and  then  getting  tired 
of  sinking,  left  about  twenty-four  feet  in  the  bottom  of 
the  shaft  for  a  sump,  and  started  a  level  tunnel  to  the 
south,  at  the  depth  of  six  hundred  and  eighty-six  feet, 
for  the  coal.  They  drove  this  tunnel  to  the  Clark  Vein, 
its  length  proving  to  be  (according  to  the  best  accounts 
afterwards  obtainable)  about  four  hundred  and  twenty 
feet.  When  within  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  of 
the  coal,  they  struck  a  large  stream  of  water,  which  ne- 
cessitated heavy  pumping  machinery,  and  a  steam  engine 
was  erected  and  a  Cornish  pump  put  in.  But  the  found- 
ations for  the  engine  were  bad,  and  it  was  never  firm 
upon  its  bed.  Moreover,  the  only  available  water  was 
that  from  the  mine,  which  was  so  heavily  charged  with 
a  mixture  of  various  sulphates,  with  probably  some  free 
sulphuric  acid,  as  to  be  exceedingly  destructive  to  the 
boilers.  Nevertheless,  the  Clark  Vein  was  at  last 
reached,  and  a  gangway  driven,  and  a  considerable  area 
of  coal  worked  out  above  its  level,  stretching  upward 
towards  the  lower  workings  of  the  Eureka  Company. 
But  the  work  was  done  at  a  heavy  loss,  and  it  was  finally 
abandoned,  the  parties  who  inaugurated  it  becoming 
bankrupt.  It  is  said  that  the  amount  of  money  ex- 
pended here  before  the  coal  was  reached  was  over  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  While  the  work 
was  in  progress  a  connection  was  made  with  the  lower 


20  COAL  MINES. 

Eureka  workings  by  a  shoot  driven  up  along  the  coal  for 
purposes  of  ventilation.  This  shoot  afterwards  an- 
swered the  purpose  of  a  water-drain  for  the  Eureka 
mine;  and  the  Eureka  Company,  having  in  the  course  of 
time  purchased  the  Independent  property,  employed 
the  Independent  shaft,  at  considerable  expense,  for  a 
year  or  two,  merely  as  a  pumping  shaft,  in  which  the 
water  was  held  at  a  certain  level,  which  just  sufficed  to 
drain  the  lower  workings  of  their  own  mine.  But  after 
having  exhausted  the  Clark  Yein  in  their  own  property 
down  to  the  top  of  the  old  Independent  workings,  the 
Eureka  Compan}',  in  its  turn,  stopped  work,  and  subse- 
quently sold  both  the  Eureka  and  Independent  proper- 
ties to  the  Pittsburg  Company,  which  now  owns  them. 
The  Independent  shaft  is  now  abandoned  and  idle.  It 
will  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  level  at  which  the 
tunnel  from  the  foot  of  this  shaft  struck  the  Clark  Yein 
is  at  a  considerably  greater  depth  than  any  other  point 
which  has  yet  been  reached  in  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  coal  close  to  the  surface  of  the 
ground  is  not  of  good  quality  in  any  of  the  beds.  The 
outcrop  of  the  Clark  Yein  is  in  many  places  nothing 
more  than  a  soft  clay  shale,  light  brown  in  color,  and 
very  slightly  carbonaceous.  At  a  few  points  there  was 
good  coal  in  the  Clark  vein  very  close  to  the  surface ; 
but  the  depth  at  which  the  coal  in  this  bed  first  becomes 
marketable  generally  ranges  from  one  hundred  to  two 
or  three  hundred  feet,  measured  on  the  dip  of  the  bed. 

The  height  to  which  the  coal  has  been  worked  in  the 
hills  up  towards  the  outcrop,  varies  greatly,  of  course, 
at  different  localities,  depending  on  the  configuration  of 
the  surface,  which  the  ravines  have  scored  so  deeply; 


CALIFORNIA.  21 

and  at  one  point  depending  on  another  circumstance, 
viz.,  the  fact  that  immediately  to  the  south  of  the  "Lit- 
tle Slope"  of  the  Black  Diamond  Company,  and  extend- 
ing for  a  considerable  distance,  both  east  and  west  of 
it,  there  was  an  area  of  several  acres  in  which  the  coal 
was  entirely  wanting,  and  which  presented  every  ap- 
pearance of  having  been  at  some  time  in  the  past  on 
fire  and  burned  out.  The  maximum  height,  however, 
to  which  the  coal  has  been  mined  on  the  Clark  bed, 
within  the  limits  of  the  Black  Diamond  Company's  prop- 
erty above  the  Clark  Vein  main  gangway,  is  about  six 
hundred  and  seventy-five  feet;  and  a  fair  statement  for 
the  average  height  of  the  workings  above  this  gangway 
for  the  whole  distance  of  a  mile  across  the  southern 
part  of  section  5,  would  be  about  five  hundred  feet. 

The  height  of  the  "lift,"  also  about  one  mile  in 
length,  between  the  Mt.  Hope,  and  the  Clark  Vein 
main  gangways  varies  from  a  minimum  of  three  hun- 
dred and  six  feet  in  the  eastern  portion  of  the  mine  to 
a  maximum  of  about  five  hundred  in  the  western  por- 
tion, owing  to  a  decrease  in  the  dip  of  the  bed  going 
west.  Probably  a  fair  average  for  the  height  of  this 
lift  for  the  whole  mile  would  be  about  three  hundred 
and  fifty  feet.  The  height  of  the  next  lower  "lift," 
and  the  present  lowest  one  on  the  Clark  Yein,  in  the 
Black  Diamond  Company's  mines,  i.  e.,  the  lift  between 
the  Mt.  Hope  and  the  Lower  Mt.  Hope  gangways,  in- 
creases going  west  from  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven  feet  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  mine  to  about 
four  hundred  and  fifty  in  the  western  part.  This  "  lift" 
is  now  only  about  four  thousand  three  hundred  feet 
long,  the  Lower  Mt.  Hope  gangway  not  having  been 


22  COAL  MINES. 

driven  so  far  to  the  west  as  the  upper  gangways  have 
been. 

The  Clark  Vein  at  the  present  time  (1877),  may  be 
said  to  be  practically  exhausted  throughout  the  Black 
Diamond  company's  property  down  to  the  level  of  the 
Lower  Mt.  Hope  gangway,  the -quantity  of  coal  which 
yet  remains  to  be  extracted  from  above  that  level  being 
very  small;  but  below  this  gangway  it  is  all  untouched 
and  solid. 

In  the  Union  mine,  they  have  worked  above  their 
Clark  Yein  gangway  No.  1  (i.  e.),  the  gangway  at  the 
foot  of  their  surface-slope,  for  a  height  of  about  600 
feet  up  to  the  old  Manhattan  gangway.  The  latter 
gangway  (driven  by  the  old  Manhattan  Com  pan}7,  which 
formerly  owned  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  9, 
and  afterwards  sold  it  to  the  Black  Diamond  Com- 
pany), started  on  the  outcrop  of  the  Clark  Vein  in 
the  bed  of  a  gulch  in  the  south-west  part  of  the 
south-east  quarter  of  section  4,  and  was  driven  west- 
erly on  the  Clark  Vein  some  twenty-four  hundred  or 
twenty-five  hundred  feet,  extending  for  most  of  this 
distance  into  and  along  the  southern  edge  of  the  south- 
west quarter  of  section  4.  Some  coal  was  extracted 
here  by  the  Manhattan  Company,  and  their  workings 
are  said  to  have  extended  in  places  as  high  as  about 
three  hundred  feet  above  this  gangway.  But  these  old 
workings  have  long  been  caved  and  closed,  and  there  is 
no  very  reliable  information  obtainable  now  as  to  their 
exact  extent.  The  Manhattan  Company  also  drove  a 
tunnel  from  this  gangway  south  to  the  Black  Diamond 
Vein,  and  opened  several  hundred  feet  of  a  gangway  on 
that  bed,  but  never  took  out  much  coal  from  there. 


CALIFORNIA.  23 

The  height  of  the  lift  in  the  Union  Mine  between  the 
Clark  Vein  gangway  No  1  and  the  Clark  Vein  gangway 
No.  2  is  about  three  hundred  and  four  feet;  and  through- 
out the  Union  Mine  the  Clark  Vein  is  now  exhausted 
down  to  the  level  of  this  latter  gangway,  which  is  only 
a  few  feet  higher  than  the  lower  Mt.  Hope  gangway  of 
the  Black  Diamond  Company.  Furthermore,  the  Union 
Company  have  continued  their  counter-slope  some  three 
hundred  feet  further  down  the  dip,  and  driven  from  its 
foot  another  gangway  (their  Clark  Vein  gangway  No  3), 
from  which,  in  1876,  they  were  working  an  additional 
lift  of  about  three  hundred  feet  of  coal.  Thi^  gang- 
way was  driven  west  only  about  eighteen  hundred  feet 
from  the  foot  of  the  counter-slope  when  the  mine  was 
abandoned  and  closed  in  December,  1876. 

There  are  no  accurate  records  now  obtainable  of  the 
extent  of  the  workings  in  the  upper  part  of  the  old  Eu- 
reka Mine.  But  the  Clark  Vein  was  entirely  cleaned 
out  here  as  far  up  as  it  would  pay  to  work  towards  the 
outcrop,  and  it  is  evident,  from  the  situation  of  the 
slope  and  the  shape  of  the  hills  at  that  locality,  that 
these  workings  must  have  extended  in  places  to  a  height 
of  some  five  or  six  hundred  feet  above  the  gangway  which 
runs  at  the  foot  of  their  surface-slope.  The  Eureka 
Company  also  worked  out  through  their  counter-slope 
two  additional  lifts,  aggregating  some  six  hundred  feet 
or  more  below  this  gangway,  and  cleaning  out  everything 
down  to  the  top  of  the  old  Independent  workings,  from 
which  point  the  distance  down  through  the  latter  to  the 
gangway  at  the  level  of  the  tunnel  from  the  foot  of  the 
Independent  shaft,  must  have  been  in  the  neighborhood 
of  four  hundred  feet,  since  the  total  distance  measured 


24  COAL  MINES. 

on  the  dip  of  the  bed  from  this  lowest  gangway  up  to 
the  gangway  at  the  foot  of  the  Eureka  surface-slope 
was  between  one  thousand  and  eleven  hundred  feet. 
Thus,  for  a  certain  distance,  here  in  the  ground,  for- 
merly owned  by  the  Eureka  and  Independent  companies, 
the  Clark  Yein  is  practically  exhausted  to  the  depth 
of  fifteen  hundred  or  sixteen  hundred  feet  measured 
on  the  dip  of  the  bed  from  the  outcrop  down  to  the 
tunnel  from  the  foot  of  the  Independent  shaft.  But 
a  direct  comparison  of  this  distance  with  the  distances 
down  from  the  outcrop  at  other  localities,  will  not 
give  the  correct  differences  of  absolute  height  between 
the  bottoms  of  the  mines,  since  the  hills  along  the  line 
of  outcrop  vary  a  good  deal  in  height,  arid  rise  consid- 
erably higher  in  the  Union  and  Black  Diamond  prop- 
erties than  they  do  here  in  the  old  Eureka.  In  fact  the 
distance  on  the  dip  of  the  bed  from  this  lowest  gang- 
way of  the  old  Independent  Company  up  to  the  level  of 
lower  Mt.  Hope  gangway  of  the  Black  Diamond  Com- 
pany, would  be  about  seven  hundred  and  forty  feet. 

In  the  Pittsburg  mine,  the  coal  on  the  Clark  Yein 
has  been  worked  to  heights  ranging  from  six  hundred 
feet,  or  less,  to  a  maximum  of  between  nine  hundred 
and  a  thousand  feet  on  the  dip  above  the  gangway 
which  runs  at  the  foot  of  their  surface-slope,  and  above 
the  highest  of  these  workings  the  additional  distance 
up,  through  soft  and  worthless  coal  and  shale  to  the  out- 
crop itself,  is  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred  feet. 
Below  the  foot  of  the  surface-slope,  there  have  been 
worked  through  the  counter -slope  in  the  Pittsburg 
mine  three  additional  lifts  of  three  hundred,  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-nine,  and  two  hundred  and  twenty-one 


CALIFORNIA.  25 

feet  respectively,  making  the  total  maximum  depth 
worked  on  the  Clark  Vein  in  this  mine,  measured  on 
the  dip,  between  seventeen  hundred  and  eighteen  hun- 
dred feet;  and  below  the  lowest  Pittsburg  gangway  it 
will  still  be  about  five  hundred  and  thirty  feet  farther 
down  the  dip  to  the  level  of  the  tunnel  from  the  foot  of 
the  Independent  shaft. 

THE  LITTLE  VEIN. 

Before  speaking  of  the  workings  on  the  "Little 
Vein,"  it  will  be  well  for  the  sake  of  clearness  to  de- 
scribe two  tunnels  in  the  Black  Diamond  Company's 
property  which  are  driven  from  daylight  south  into  the 
hills,  and  run  nearly  level  through  the  superincumbent 
strata  to  the  Black  Diamond  Yein.  The  first  of  these 
is  known  as  the  Upper  Black  Diamond  Tunnel.  This 
is  the  highest  and  the  oldest  of  all  existing  openings  to 
the  Black  Diamond  Vein.  Its  mouth  is  in  the  right 
hand  or  south-east  side,  and  near  the  bottom  of  the 
same  ravine  in  which  is  situated  lower  down  the  mouth 
of  the  Clark  Vein  hoisting  slope.  It  is  distant  from  the 
latter  a  little  over  eight  hundred  feet,  in  a  direction 
somewhat  to  the  west  of  south,  and  is  one  thousand 
and  thirty-four  feet  above  low  water  level.  It  is  also 
some  little  distance  to  the  south  of  the  line  of  outcrop 
of  the  Clark  Vein.  The  tunnel  is  straight,  and  runs  in 
a  direction  about  2°  east  of  true  south  for  a  distance 
of  four  hundred  and  twenty-two  feet  to  the  Black  Dia- 
mond Vein.  At  a  point  one  hundred  and  twenty^  feet 
from  its  mouth,  it  cuts  a  seam  of  coal,  which  is  at  this 
locality  fourteen  inches  thick.  At  a  point  one  hundred 


26  COAL  MINES. 

and  ninety-six  feet  from  its  mouth  it  cuts  another  and 
smaller  seam.  These  two  are  the  only  seams  of  coal 
exposed  in  the  Upper  Black  Diamond  Tunnel  above  the 
Black  Diamond  Vein;  the  rest  of  the  strata  consisting 
of  sandstones  and  shales. 

The  second  of  the  two  tunnels  now  in  question  has 
been  already  mentioned,  and  is  known  as  the  Clayton 
Tunnel.  Its  mouth  is  in  the  bottom  of  the  ravine, 
about  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet  south-westerly  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Mt.  Hope  slope,  and  is  seven  hundred 
and  ninety  feet  above  low  water.  This  tunnel  is  also 
straight,  and  runs  about  4J°  to  the  west  of  south,  a  dis- 
tance of  nearly  eleven  hundred  feet  to  the  Black  Dia- 
mond Vein.  It  has  an  ascending  grade  of  about  one 
foot  in  a  hundred  going  in.  The  distance  in  from  its 
mouth  to  the  point  where  it  cuts  the  centre  of  the  Clark 
Vein  is  three  hundred  and  sixty  feet. 

The  following  sketch  shows  a  section  of  the  strata  as 
exhibited  along  the  line  of  this  tunnel.  The  various 
strata  are  numbered  in  the  sketch  to  correspond  with 
the  numbers  in  the  first  column  of  the  tabular  descrip- 
tion which  immediately  follows.  The  clip  here  being 
about  31°,  the  actual  thickness  of  the  strata  is  a  trifle 
over  one  half  the  distances  which  they  occupy  respec- 
tively along  the  level  floor  of  the  tunnel.  In  the  last 
two  columns  of  the  tabular  description,  both  these 
figures  are  given;  the  first  one  containing  the  respective 
level  distances  along  the  floor  of  the  tunnel,  and  the 
last  one  the  actual  thicknesses  of  the  various  strata  in 
feet  and  decimals  of  a  foot. 


CALIFORNIA. 


27 


SECTION  OF  STRATA  ON  LINE  OF  CLAYTON  TUNNEL. 


DESCRIPTION. 


Distance  on 
floor  of  tun- 
uel,  in  feet. 


Actual 
thicknesf 


in  feet. 
BLACK  DIAMOND  VEIN,  forty  inches  coal,  with  seven  or  eight 

feet  of  bone  above  and  below 35.0  18.0 

Heavy-bedded  sandstone— Dry 66.5  34.2 

Heavy-bedded  sandstone -Wet 40.0  20.6 

Thin-bedded  and  ferriiginous  sandstone 4.0  2.0 

Heavy-bedded  sandstone— Wet , 31.0  16.0 

Thin-bedded  carbonaceous  shales— Dry 10.0  5.2 

Numerous  alternations  of  sandstones  and  thin  shales:  some  of 

the  latter  carbonaceous— Dry 35.0  18.1 

Heavy-bedded  sandstone— Dry 20.0  10.3 

Alternations  of  sandstone  aud  thin  shales,  the  latter  some- 
times carbonaeeoxis  —  Wet 25.0  12.9 

Same  alternations  as  in  9,  but  dry 45.0  23.2 

COAL,  five  or  six  inches  thick 1.0  0.5 

Alternations  of  sandstones  and  thin  shales  -  Dry 139.0  71  6 

Heavy-bedded  sand-rock— Dry 48.0  24.7 

COAL  about  one  foot  thick,  with  six  inches  of  bone  on  each  side 

of  it 4.0  2.0 

Heavy-bedded  sand-rock— Dry 146.0  75.2 

Heavy-bedded  sand-rock— Dry 18.0  9.3 

Coarse-grained  sand -rock,  generally  heavy-bedded 64.0  33.0 

CLAKK  VEIN,  thirty-four  inches  of  coal 5.5  2.8 

Same  sandstone  as  in  17 137.5  70.8 

Fine-grained,  bluish  and  clayey  rock,  moderately  heavy-bed- 
ded, with  occasional  bands  of  coarser  sand-rock  a  few  inches 

thick 127.0  65.4 

Thin-bedded  clay  shales,  to  mouth  of  tunnel 93.0  47.9 


21, 

Between  15  and  16  in  the  above  section  there  is  a  streak  of  carbonaceous  shale  one 
foot  thick,  and  also  a  second  one  of  about  the  same  thickne&s  between  16  and  17. 


As  there  are  two  little  seams  of  coal  above  the 
Black  Diamond  Vein  in  the  Upper  Black  Diamond  tun- 
nel, so  also  there  are  two  little  seams  in  the  Clayton 
tunnel  between  the  Black  Diamond  Vein  and  the  Clark 
Yein.  But  it  will  be  seen,  on  closer  inspection,  that 


28  COAL  MINES. 

the  positions  of  the  upper  and  lower  little  seams  in  the 
two  cases  do  not  correspond  to  each  other  respectively. 
In  fact,  their  distances  from  the  middle  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Yieu  are  such  that  the  lower  seam  in  the 
Clayton  tunnel  corresponds  closely  in  position  with  the 
upper  seam  in  the  upper  Black  Diamond  tunnel;  while 
there  is  no  seam  in  the  Clayton  tunnel  corresponding  to 
the  lower  one  in  the  upper  Black  Diamond  tunnel;  and 
furthermore,  the  mouth  itself  of  the  latter  tunnel  ap- 
pears to  be  further  south  by  some  sixty  feet  than  the 
proper  position  at  this  level  for  the  upper  seam  of  the 
Clayton  tunnel.  Therefore,  as  the  distance  between 
these  two  tunnels  in  the  direction  of  strike  of  the 
beds  is  only  some  three  or  four  hundred  feet,  and 
as  no  faults  of  any  magnitude  have  been  discovered 
within  this  distance  in  any  of  the  workings  on  either 
the  Clark  or  the  Black  Diamond  Vein,  it  is  extremely 
probable  that  the  lower  seam  in  the  Clayton  tunnel  is 
really  identical  with  the  upper  one  in  the  upper  Black 
Diamond  tunnel,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  if  we  consid- 
ered the  respective  thicknesses  of  the  seams  alone  we 
might  be  induced  to  draw  an  opposite  inference.  More- 
over, the  entire  disappearance  of  the  lower  little  seam 
of  the  upper  Black  Diamond  tunnel  within  the  short 
distance  of  less  than  four  hundred  feet  between  it  and 
the  Clayton  tunnel,  and  the  decrease  in  thickness  of  the 
upper  little  seam  of  the  upper  tunnel  within  the  same 
distance,  from  fourteen  inches  to  five  or  six  inches  only, 
are  in  perfect  keeping  with  numerous  other  cases 
throughout  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines,  in  which  consider- 
able variations  in  thicknesses  of  strata  within  short  dis- 
tances are  matters  not  of  doubt  but  of  certainty,  having 
been  fully  exposed  by  the  underground  workings. 


CALIFORNIA.  29 

It  has  been  previously  stated  -(page  10),  that  the 
number  of  beds  which  have  been  profitably  worked  at 
the  Mount  Diablo  mines  is  three;  but  it  will  be  seen 
presently  that  there  is  a  strong  probability  that  at 
different  localities  two  separate  and  distinct  beds  have 
been  confounded  under  the  general  name  of  "Little 
Vein,"  and  that  the  whole  number  of  beds  which  have 
been  more  or  less  worked  with  profit,  should,  therefore, 
be  stated  at  four. 

There  have  been  no  "Little  Yein"  workings  in  the 
property  of  the  Black  Diamond  Company,  for  the  rea- 
son that  in  this  portion  of  the  field  none  of  the  little 
seams  where  cut  by  tunnels  between  the  Clark  and 
Black  Diamond  veins  have  been  of  sufficient  thickness 
to  pay  for  working.  But  in  the  eastern  part  of  the 
Union  Mine,  and  also  in  the  western  part  of  the  old 
Eureka  Company's  ground,  one  of  these  little  seams 
reached  a  thickness  ranging  from  sixteen  to  twenty- 
four  inches  of  good  coal,  and  has  therefore  been  quite 
extensively  worked,  yielding  an  aggregate  of  perhaps 
from  forty  to  fifty  thousand  tons  of  coal.  This  vein 
is  in  all  probability  identical  with  the  upper  little  seam 
in  the  Clayton  tunnel;  for  the  total  thickness  of  the 
strata  between  it  and  the  Clark  Vein  in  the  Clayton 
tunnel  is  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet,  while  the 
thickness  between  the  Clark  Yein  and  the  "Little  Vein," 
which  has  been  worked  in  the  Union  and  Eureka,  as 
shown  by  the  workings  at  two  different  localities,  is  in 
the  Union  ground  about  one  hundred  and  seventeen 
feet,  and  in  the  Eureka  ground  about  one  hundred  and 
nineteen  feet.  There  can  be  no  question  about  the 
Little  Yein  in  the  Eureka  ground  being  identical  with 


30  COAL  MINES. 

that  in  the  Union;  for  the  workings  have  actually  con- 
nected with  each  other  under-ground.  But  at  a  point 
considerably  farther  east,  in  the  Pittsburg  Mine,  and 
in  the  north-east  corner  of  the  north-east  quarter  of 
section  9,  a  "Little  Vein"  has  been  worked  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  by  means  of  a  little  slope  driven  down 
to  it  through  the  Clark  Vein,  at  a  point  a  few  hundred 
feet  south-west  of  the  mouth  of  the  main  Pittsburg 
slope  already  described.  And  here  the  thickness  of 
strata  as  exposed  in  the  little  slope  below  the  Clark 
Vein,  and  above  the  Little  Vein,  is  about  two  hundred 
and  fifteen  feet.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  this 
"Little  Vein"  is  a  different  seam  from  the  one  in  the 
Union  and  Eureka  grounds,  and  that  it  underlies  the 
latter. 

THE  BLACK  DIAMOND  BED. 

The  chief  openings  to  the  Black  Diamond  Bed,  with 
the  exception  of  the  two  tunnels  already  described,  do 
not  run  directly  out  to  day-light,  but  are  in  the  shape 
of  tunnels  entirely  underground,  driven  south  from 
various  gangways  on  the  Clark  Vein. 

The  Black  Diamond  Company  has  four  such  tunnels. 
Two  of  these  run  south  directly  from  the  Black  Diamond 
shaft.  The  first  or  upper  one,  known  as  the  "Black 
Diamond  Tunnel  No.  2,"  is  at  the  level  of  the  Mount 
Hope  gangway,  which  it  intersects  at  a  point  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  feet  south  of  the  centre  of  the  shaft. 
The  second,  and  lower  one,  known  as  the  "Black 
Diamond  Tunnel  No.  3,"  starts  from  the  foot  of  the 
shaft  at  a  point  about  six  feet  higher  than  the  level  of 
the  lower  Mount  Hope  gangway,  so  that  the  cars  from 


CALIFORNIA.  31 

this  tunnel  will  run  on  to  the  upper  platform  of  the 
double-decked  cage  which  receives  at  the  same  time  on 
its  lower  platform  the  cars  from  the  lower  Mount  Hope 
gangway. 

From  the  south  ends  of  these  tunnels,  gangways  are 
driven  both  east  and  west  on  the  Black  Diamond  Yein, 
and  are  known  respectively  as  the  "  Black  Diamond 
Gangway  No.  2,"  and  the  "Black  Diamond  Gangway 
No.  3."  The  gangway  described  hereafter  at  the  south 
end  of  the  Clayton  tunnel,  and  formerly  known  as  the 
"Lower  Black  Diamond  Gangway,"  being  now  called 
the  "Black  Diamond  Gangway  No.  1." 

About  twenty-one  hundred  to  twenty-two  hundred 
feet  west  from  the  shaft,  two  other  tunnels  are  driven 
south  to  the  Black  Diamond  Vein,  one  from  the  Mount 
Hope,  and  the  other  from  the  lower  Mount  Hope  gang- 
way. These  tunnels  are  known  respectively  as  the 
"West  Black  Diamond  Tunnel  No.  2,"  and  the  "West 
Black  Diamond  Tunnel  No.  3." 

In  the  Union  Mine,  a  tunnel  runs  south  from  the 
Clark  Yein  gangway  at  the  foot  of  the  surface  slope, 
and  in  line  with  that  slope  to  the  Black  Diamond  Vein; 
and  a  lower  tunnel  to  the  same  vein  runs  south  from 
the  gangway  on  the  Clark  Yein  next  below  the  one  at 
the  foot  of  the  surface  slope,  and  is  about  seventy -five 
feet  east  of  the  counter-slope  already  described  in  this 
mine.  From  the  south  end  of  the  upper  one  of  these 
tunnels  a  gangway  was  driven  a  few  hundred  feet  to  the 
west;  but  the  driving  of  this  gangway  was  stopped 
when  it  was  found  that  it  was  south  of  the  section  line," 
and  therefore  in  ground  belonging  to  the  Black  Dia- 
mond Company.  From  the  south  end  of  the  lower 


32  COAL  MINES. 

tunnel,  a  gangway  has  been  driven  a  long  distance  west, 
and  a  considerable  lift  of  coal  worked  out  above  it  and 
between  it  and  the  section  line. 

From  the  south  end  of  the  upper  Black  Diamond 
tunnel  already  described,  in  the  ground  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Company,  a  gangway  was  driven  a  few  hun- 
dred feet  to  the  east,  and  over  three-fourths  of  a  mile 
to  the  west. 

From  the  south  end  of  the  Clayton  tunnel  the  Black 
Diamond  Gangway  No.  1.  (formerly  known  as  the 
"Lower  Black  Diamond  Gangway  ")  was  driven  west 
considerably  over  three-fourths  of  a  mile,  and  east  a  lit- 
tle less  than  three-fourths,  making  the  total  length  of 
this  gangway  something  over  a  mile  and  a  half.  This  is 
the  longest  single  continuous  gangway  which  exists  in 
the  Mt.  Diablo  mines.  For  a  short  distance  at  its  east- 
ern end,  it  runs  along  but  a  few  feet  below  the  level  of 
the  old  Manhattan  Gangway  on  this  bed,  already  men- 
tioned, and  driven  many  years  ago.;  and  this  part  of  the 
Black  Diamond  Gangway,  No.  1.  was  only  driven  for 
the  sake  of  making  a  connection  with  the  old  Manhattan 
tunnel  for  purposes  of  ventilation. 

The  Black  Diamond  Yein  is  everywhere  a  much  more 
expensive  bed  to  work  than  the  Clark  Yein.  This  is 
owing  to  the  bad  character  of  the  immediate  roof  and 
floor  of  the  coal.  The  whole  thickness  of  the  Black 
Diamond  bed  varies  in  different  localities  from  six  or 
eight  to  eighteen  or  twenty  feet.  But  the  greater  por- 
tion of  this  thickness  consists  of  interstratified  clay — 
slate,  and  "  bone," — the  last  word  being  a  miners'  term 
to  designate  a  very  impure,  slaty  and  worthless  coal, 
which  forms  a  weak  roof  and  a  bad  floor,  requiring 


CALIFORNIA.  33 

much  timbering  and  gradually  swelling  so  badly  on  ex- 
posure to  the  air  as  to  crush  the  timbers,  and  necessitate 
frequent  cutting  down  of  the  bottoms  of  the  shoots  and 
the  gangway  floors.  The  workable  coal,  wherever  it  ex- 
tends in  the  Black  Diamond  Vein,  lies  nearly  in  the 
middle  of  the  mass  forming  the  thick  bed  just  described, 
and  has  bone  and  shale  both  above  and  below  it.  It 
generally  attains  its  maximum  thickness  at  those  locali- 
ties where  the  whole  bed  reaches  its  maximum  de- 
velopment, or  in  other  words,  where  the  workable  coal 
is  thickest;  there,  also,  the  "bone"  and  slate  are  thick- 
est, both  above  and  beneath  it,  and  vice  versa,  where 
the  total  thickness  of  the  bed  is  least,  there  the  worka- 
ble coal  thins  out  or  even  disappears  entirely  and  the 
whole  bed  becomes  worthless.  The  coal  itself,  however, 
in  this  bed,  wherever  thick  enough  to  be  worked  with 
profit,  is  generally  clean  and  free  from  interstratified 
slate  or  "bone",  and  there  have  been  considerable 
areas  in  the  Black  Diamond  Vein  which  have  yielded 
rather  better,  because  harder,  coal  than  most  of  that 
produced  by  the  Clark  Vein. 

Throughout  the  whole  length  of  the  upper  Black 
Diamond  Gangway,  except  for  a  little  distance  in  the 
extreme  western  portion  of  the  mine,  the  coal  was  good, 
and  its  thickness  averaged  about  forty-four  inches 
though  varying  at  different  points  from  thirty-six  to 
fifty-four. 

The  maximum  height  of  the  lift  worked  out  above 
this  gangway  was  about  five  hundred  and  seventy-five 
feet.  But  its  average  height  was  much  less  than  this, 
amounting  to  not  far  from  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet. 

The  height  of  the  lift  between  the  upper  Black  Dia~ 
3 


34  COAL  MINES. 

mond  Gangway  and  the  Black  Diamond  Gangway  No. 
1.,  varied  from  a  minimum  of  about  four  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  at  a  point  some  four  or  five  hundred 
feet  west  of  the  upper  Black  Diamond  tunnel,  to  a 
maximum  of  a  little  over  five  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in 
the  western  part  of  the  mine.  This  increase  in  the 
height  of  the  lift  towards  the  west  is  due  here,  as  well  as 
on  the  Clark  bed,  to  a  decrease  in  the  amount  of  dip  as 
we  go  west. 

There  was  a  small  patch  of  good  coal  left  un worked 
above  the  top  of  the  highest  workings  above  the  upper 
Black  Diamond  Gangway,  which  is  now  inaccessible 
from  below,  but  which  may  possibly  be  worked  out 
hereafter  by  means  of  a  new  and  shallow  opening 
from  the  surface  of  the  hills:  and  there  are  also  a  few 
acres  of  good  coal  not  yet  worked  out  in  the  northwest 
quarter  of  section  9,  above  the  level  of  the  Black  Dia- 
mond Gangway  No.  1.  Bat  with  these  two  exceptions, 
the  Black  Diamond  Yein  is  already  exhausted  down 
to  the  level  of  the  latter  gangway. 

The  height  of  the  lift  between  the  Black  Diamond 
Gangway  No.  1  and  the  Black  Diamond  Gangway  No.  2, 
at  a  point  about  five  hundred  and  ninety  feet  east  of  the 
Black  Diamond  Tunnel  No.  2,  is  three  hundred  and 
fifteen  feet.  At  the  south  end  of  the  Black  Diamond 
Tunnel  No.  3,  the  height  of  the  lift  from  there  up  to  the 
Black  Diamond  Gangway  No.  2,  is  three  hundred  and 
eighty-two  feet. 

From  the  south  end  of  the  Clayton  tunnel,  westerly, 
along  the  Black  Diamond  Gangway  No.  1,  the  coal  was 
worked  continuously  all  the  way,  and  the  whole  lift  ex- 
hausted as  far  west  as  the  gangway  was  driven.  For 


CALIFORNIA.  35 

a  few  hundred  feet,  however,  to  the  west  of  the  tunnel, 
the  coal  was  not  quite  so  thick  as  it  was  in  the  upper 
gangway,  the  average  for  the  first  eight  hundred  feet 
here  being  only  about  thirty-four  inches;  and  at  a  point 
one  thousand  and  sixty  feet  west  of  the  tunnel  there  was 
a  small  fault,  beyond  which,  for  a  distance  of  some  three 
hundred  feet,  the  coal  was  rather  soft.  But  west  of  this 
the  coal  again  was  good  and  hard,  and  with  an  average 
thickness  of  probably  forty  inches,  reaching  in  places  a 
maximum  of  four  feet  and  a  half. 

To  the  east  of  the  Clayton  tunnel,  the  coal  on  this 
gangway  was  thinner,  but  maintained  an  average  (though 
gradually  diminishing),  thickness  of  twenty-nine  inches 
for  a  distance  of  some  three  hundred  and  thirty  feet, 
becoming  gradually,  however,  more  and  more  streaked 
with  "bone."  Within  the  next  fifty  feet,  it  dwindled 
rapidly  to  only  eight  or  ten  inches  in  thickness,  becom- 
ing entirely  worthless,  and  at  the  same  time  so  dirty  as 
to  be  called  no  longer  "coal,"  but  "bone."  From 
thence,  eastward,  for  a  distance  of  between  eight  hun- 
dred and  nine  hundred  feet  along  this  gangway,  there 
was  no  coal  of  any  value  whatever,  and  the  total  thickness 
of  the  bed  for  a  portion  of  the  way  was  only  some  five  or 
six  feet,  consisting  entirely  of  slate  and  bone.  But  at  a 
point  about  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  feet  east  of  the 
tunnel,  the  coal  again  comes  in,  and  then  continues  of 
fair  quality  and  with  a  thickness  ranging  from  two  and 
a  half  to  three  and  a  half  feet,  for  a  distance  of  some- 
thing like  two  thousand  feet  in  the  north-west  quarter 
of  section  9.  This  quarter-section  covers  a  massive  hill, 
which  rises  to  a  height  of  a  little  over  fifteen  hundred 
feet  above  tide-water;  and  it  is  probable  that  the  good 


36  COAL  MINES. 

coal  in  this  hill,  at  about  Jhe  central  part  of  the  quarter- 
section,  extends  to  a  height  of  nine  hundred  or  one 
thousand  feet  on  the  dip  of  the  bed  above  the  present 
gangway.  But  it  has  yet  been  worked  to  a  height  of 
only  about  three  hundred  feet  above  the  gangway; 
though  at  one  point  a  shoot  was  driven  up  to  test  its 
quality  some  seven  hundred  feet  above  the  gangway, 
and  it  was  found  to  be  good  as  far  up  as  this  shoot 
extended. 

At  a  considerable  distance  to  the  east  of  the  old  Man- 
hattan tunnel,  two  or  three  other  openings  have  been 
made  to  the  Black  Diamond  Yein  by  means  of  tunnels 
and  slopes  driven  by  the  old  Eureka  and  the  Pittsburg 
companies  in  ground  now  belonging  to  the  latter  com- 
pany, but  the  coal  was  not  found  thick  enough  and 
good  enough  to  pay  for  working,  and  no  mining  of  any 
account  has  been  done  there.  It  is  only  within  the  mile 
and  a  half  already  described,  which  is  traversed  from 
end  to  end  by  the  Black  Diamond  Gangway  No.  1,  that 
the  Black  Diamond  Vein  has  ever  been  worked  with  any 
profit. 

FAULTS  AND  DISTURBANCES. 

Throughout  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  mines  the  beds  are 
frequently  more  or  less  disturbed  by  faults  and  disloca- 
tions. Within  the  two  and  a  half  miles  of  profitable 
working,  some  seven  or  eight  of  these  faults  are  of  con- 
siderable magnitude,  involving  throws  of  from  ten  or 
fifteen  feet  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  or  more,  and 
immediately  outside  of  this  two  miles  and  a  half,  both 
on  the  east  and  on  the  west,  there  are  disturbances  of 
still  greater  magnitude .  But  besides  these  larger  faults, 


OF  THE 


OF 

,CAUF^|i>  CALIFORNIA.  37 

the  smaller  disturbances  scattered  throughout*  the  mines 
and  involving  well-marked  dislocations,  or  throws,  of 
from  five  or  six  feet  down  to  as  many  inches  or  less,  are 
extremely  numerous.  These  disturbances  are  generally 
most  sharply  defined  and  may  be  most  easily  studied  in 
the  Clark  Vein.  Many  of  the  smaller  ones  are  entirely 
local  in  character,  and  extend  but  very  short  distances; 
and  it  is  only  a  very  few  of  the  largest  ones  which  ap- 
pear to  extend  through  the  whole  mass  of  strata  between 
the  Clark  and  Black  Diamond  Veins  with  sufficient  uni- 
formity in  character  and  direction  to  render  it  possible 
to  recognize  with  certainty  the  same  fault  in  both  the 
veins. 

The  longest  distance  which  occurs  anywhere  in  the 
mines  without  any  fault  or  disturbance  of  noticeable 
magnitude,  is  a  distance  of  about  two  thousand  feet  on 
the  Clark  Vein,  stretching  east  from  the  Black  Diamond 
shaft  into  the  western  portion  of  the  Union  mine.  The 
foot  of  the  Black  Diamond  shaft  itself,  however,  is 
immediately  opposite  the  point  where  a  fault,  involving 
a  throw  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  down  to  the  west, 
crosses  the  Lower  Mt.  Hope  gangway.  This  fault, 
like  most  of  the  larger  ones  in  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines, 
has  a  north-easterly  and  south-westerly  course,  and  its 
plane  dips  at  a  steep  angle  towards  the  north-west.  It 
shows  through  all  the  upper  works  on  the  Clark  Vein, 
and  its  position  may  be  traced  upon  the  mine-map  by 
the  sudden  changes  in  the  directions  of  the  three  suc- 
cessive gangways  on  that  vein,  where  it  crosses  them. 
It  is  also  probable,  through  not  certain,  that  this  fault 
extends  through  the  intervening  strata  to  the  Black 
Diamond  Vein,  as  there  is  a  fault  of  several  feet  down 


38  COAL  MINES. 

to  west  in  the  latter  vein,  which  crosses  the  Upper  Black 
Diamond  gangway  eight  hundred  feet  west  of  the  upper 
tunnel,  and  the  Black  Diamond  gangway  No.  1,  at  a  point 
one  thousand  and  sixty  feet  west  of  the  Clayton  tunnel, 
running  north-easterly  and  south-westerly,  and  in  such 
a  position  that  although  not  exactly  in  line  with  this 
fault  upon  the  Clark  Yein,  yet  by  curving  slightly,  as 
it  is  very  likely  to  do,  through  the  intermediate  strata, 
it  may  very  easily  connect  with  it. 

To  the  west  of  this,  for  a  distance  of  over  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred  feet,  there  is  no  single  fault  upon 
the  Clark  Yein  which  equals  it  in  magnitude,  though 
there  are  many  smaller  ones. 

In  the  Union  mine,  there  are  five  large  faults.  One 
of  these  is  to  the  east  of  the  Union  slope;  one  is  just 
west  of  it,  and  is  a  considerable  downthrow  to  the  wrest; 
the  three  others  are  still  further  west,  two  of  them  be- 
ing upthrows  to  the  west,  and  one,  the  largest  of  all  of 
them,  a  downthrow  of  sixty  or  seventy  feet  to  the  west. 
Some  of  these  faults,  doubtless,  also  run  through  to 
the  Black  Diamond  Vein;  but  they  show  themselves 
there  in  such  modified  forms  that  among  the  multi- 
plicity of  minor  disturbances  it  is  not  easy  to  recognize 
them. 

In  the  eastern  part  of  the  old  Eureka  Company's 
ground  there  is  a  large  fault  which,  so  long  as  this  com- 
pany continued  to  work,  formed  practically  the  dividing 
line  between  its  underground  workings  and  those  of 
the  Pittsburg  Company. 

At  a  point  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Pittsburg  Mine, 
about  nine  hundred  feet  east  of  the  foot  of  the  Pittsburg 
slope,  a  fault  crosses  the  gangway  larger  than  any  of  the 


CALIFORNIA.  39 

preceding,  and  consists  of  an  upthrow  of  something  over 
one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  to  the  east;  and  at  the  ex- 
treme eastern  limit  of  the  Pittsburg  Company's  work- 
ings, the  gangway  terminates  at  the  wall  of  another 
fault,  which  has  never  yet  been  thoroughly  explored, 
and  perhaps  never  will  be,  but  which,  judging  from 
the  position  of  the  outcrop  of  the  Clark  Vein,  at  points 
further  east  toward  Stewart's  mine,  must  consist  of  an 
upthrow  to  the  east  of  not  less  than  three  hundred  to 
four  hundred  feet,  and  possibly  .more. 

It  would  be  both  impracticable  and  useless  to  describe 
all  the  smaller  disturbances  scattered  through  these 
mines.  But,  as  an  illustration  of  the  frequency  with 
which  they  sometimes  occur,  the  following  description  is 
given  from  actual  measurement  of  a  somewhat  remark- 
able "trouble"  which  extends  for  some  distance  along 
the  Clark  Yein  main  gangway,  in  the  western  part  of  the 
Black  Diamond  company's  mines:  Beginning  at  a  point 
about  twenty-one  hundred  and  ten  feet  west  of  the  foot 
of  the  Little  Hoisting  Slope,  we  have  first  a  jump  of 
seven  inches  down  to  west;  then 

20    feet  further  west,  a  jump  of  17  inches  up  to  west. 

171     ft  ft  ft  ft  Q  t<  it         It         (I 

12 J-  "         le  "  "  12         "  down  "     " 

2     "         "          "  "          12         "    up     "     " 

6J  "         "          "  "          22        "  down  "     " 

341  tt        tt  tt  it  7         tt    Up     a     tt 

2   ft     ft       tt       tc       -tn     tt   tt    et   tt 
1Q   it     tt       tt       tt       10     tt   tt    it   tt 

Then  for  a  short  distance  the  ground  is  very  irregular 
and  the  coal  entirely  disappears,  with  the  exception  of 


40  COAL  MINES. 

a  thin  and  irregular  seam,  which  bends  first  up  and 
then  down  to  the  west,  to  where  the  coal  conies  in  on 
the  gangway  again,  which  it  does  with  a  jump  down  to 
west  at  a  point  about  seventeen  feet  west  of  the  twelve- 
inch  jump  last  noted.  We  then  have 

5  ft.  farther  west,  a  jump  of  10  inches  down  to  west. 


4" 

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r  an  irregular  roll  and 
:    jump  resulting  in  a 
{            change  of 

a  jump  of 

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42 

1  1 

down 

This  was  the  last  jump  measured;  but  there  were 
more  of  them,  and  the  "  trouble"  extended  some  little 
distance  further  west.  Throughout  its  whole  extent, 
both  coal  and  sandstone  were  of  course  very  badly 
crushed,  some  of  the  latter  being  just  ready  to  fall  to 
powder  and  run  like  loose  sand,  and  very  little  coal  was 
obtained  from  here  till,  on  going  farther  west,  the  faults 
became  less  frequent. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  same  fault  in  different 
portions  of  its  course  varies  considerably  in  the  amount 
of  its  throw,  showing  that  the  displacement  in  such 
cases  has  involved  a  twisting  of  the  strata.  There  is 
one  notable  instance  of  this  kind  in  the  eastern  part  of 
the  Union  mine.  In  the  upper  workings  here  a  fault  of 
considerable  magnitude  runs  about  north-east  and 
south-west,  and  at  the  highest  point  of  the  workings 


CALIFORNIA.  41 

exhibits  itself  as  an  upthrow  of  sixteen  feet  to  the  east. 
But  it  curves  gradually  to  the  north  in  going  down,  thus 
being  convex  to  the  east,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
amount  of  its  throw  gradually  diminishes,  until,  at  the 
point  where  it  crosses  the  present  lowest  gangway  in 
the  mine,  its  course  is  about  north  and  south,  and  its 
upthrow  is  only  eighteen  inches  to  the  east. 

With  reference  to  the  direction  of  throw  in  the  faults, 
the  general  law  holds  pretty  well  throughout  these 
mines,  that,  where  the  plane  of  a  fault  is  inclined  from 
the  vertical,  it  is  the  hanging  wall  of  the  fault  which 
has  gone  down.  But  this  law,  though  general,  is  not 
universal,  and  cases  are  occasionally  found  here  in 
which  the  throw  is  in  the  opposite  direction. 

The  general  line  of  strike  of  the  beds,  in  spite  of  all 
faults  and  disturbances,  is  very  straight  for  a  distance 
of  nearly  a  mile  and  a  half  in  a  direction  about  N.  86° 
W  (true  course),  from  the  Pittsburg  slope  to  a  point 
about  as  far  west  as  the  middle  of  section  5;  and  within 
this  distance  the  dip  does  not  vary  greatly  from  30°, 
ranging  in  general  from  28°  to  32°. 

But,  going  west  from  the  middle  line  of  sections  5 
and  8,  the  beds  and  the  strata  curve  far  around  in  a 
gradual  sweep  to  the  south,  while  at  the  same  time  their 
dip  gradully  diminishes  until  it  does  not  exceed  20°; 
and  in  the  western  part  of  the  Clark  Vein  main  gang- 
way there  were  places  where  it  was  only  15°.  The  general 
form  and  shape  of  the  beds  as  they  lie  in  this  part  of 
the  mines,  therefore,  is  that  of  warped  surfaces.  And  this 
state  of  things  produces,  of  course,  a  gradual  divergence 
of  the  gangways  of  each  bed  from  each  other,  and  a  grad- 
ual increase  in  the  height  of  all  the  "lifts"  in  going 
west. 


42  CO  A  L  MINES. 

This  great  curve  of  the  beds  to  the  south,  in  the  west- 
ern part  of  the  mines,  is  evidently  preliminary  to  a  great 
and  sudden  disturbance  of  the  strata,  which  is  proven 
by  other  evidence  to  exist  in  the  eastern  halves  of  sec- 
tions 6  and  7,  and  within  a  short  distance  to  the  west  of 
where  the  mines  have  stopped.  But  none  of  the  gang- 
ways, on  either  the  Clark  or  Black  Diamond  Vein,  were 
driven  far  enough  west  to  actually  encounter  this  great 
disturbance.  They  were  stopped  because,  for  various 
reasons,  it  was  not  profitable  to  drive  them  further.  In 
the  upper  Black  Diamond  gangway,  the  coal  still  kept 
its  place  and  thickness,  but  had  grown  rather  soft  and 
friable,  and  in  this  expensive  bed,  with  the  disadvantages 
of  a  dip  of  only  18°  to  20°,  and  nearly  a  mile  of  under- 
ground haulage,  it  would  not  pay  to  go  further  for  coal 
of  so  poor  a  quality.  The  face  of  the  Black  Diamond 
Gangway  No.  1,  struck  a  fault,  the  magnitude  of  which 
was  not  known;  and  though  the  coal  here  was  of  good 
quality,  and  over  four  feet  thick  up  to  the  fault,  yet  the 
dip  here,  as  well  as  in  the  upper  gangway,  was  low, 
and  the  underground  haulage  was  over  a  mile.  So  it 
was  not  considered  advisable  to  drive  further,  upon  the 
chances,  in  the  face  of  the  additional  fact  that  the  near 
proximity,  though  not  the  exact  locality,  of  great  dis- 
turbance to  the  west,  was  certain.  In  the  Clark  Vein 
main  gangway,  the  work  was  finally  stopped  because  of 
a  somewhat  interesting  fact  of  altogether  a  different  kind. 
Here  the  Clark  Vein  gradually  split  into  two  portions 
which  grew  thinner  and  thinner  until  they  almost  dis- 
appeared. At  a  point,  probably  a  thousand  feet  back 
from  the  final  face  of  the  gangway,  an  almost  impercep- 
tible seam  or  parting  first  made  its  appearance  in  the 


CALIFORNIA.  43 

middle  of  the  bed.  Tins  parting  at  first  was  ilot  thicker 
than  a  knife-blade,  and  it  ran  a  considerable  distance 
before  it  presented  any  further  special  change.  But 
then  it  begun  slowly  to  increase  in  thickness,  and  grad- 
ually developed  itself  into  a  little  layer  of  clay -slate. 
This  change  went  on  slowly  for  some  distance,  the  coal 
above  and  below  the  slate  being  still  good,  but  decreas- 
ing slightly  in  thickness,  till  at  a  point  four  hundred  and 
eighty-five  feet  from  the  final  end  of  the  gangway,  there 
were  two  streaks  of  coal,  each  about  one  foot  thick,  with 
a  few  inches  in  thickness  of  slate  between  them. 

Here  the  gangway  struck  the  first  jump  of  a  series  of 
small  faults  and  roils  which  continued  for  some  distance, 
and  there  was  a  sudden  increase  in  the  thickness  of  slate 
between  the  two  bands  of  coal.  The  gangway  was  still 
driven  on,  however,  in  the  hope  that  .the  coal  might 
come  in  again;  —  but  with  prospects  which  only  grew 
worse  and  worse;  the  coal  growing  thinner  and  the  slate 
growing  thicker,  till  at  last  the  upper  seam  of  coal  was 
only  about  three  inches  thick,  and  the  lower  one  six 
inches,  while  the  clay-rock  between  them  had  increased 
to  a  thickness  of  about  five  feet.  The  work  was  then 
abandoned. 

The  exact  condition  of  the  face  of  the  Mt.  Hope  gang- 
way when  abandoned  is  not  known  to  the  writer.  But  it 
is  evident  in  any  case  that  it  was  driven  far  enough  to  the 
west,  so  that  in  the  light  of  the  development  already 
made  in  the  gangway  next  above,  it  was  not  likely  to  pay 
to  drive  it  further.  It  probably  went  to  the  first  of  the 
series  of  little  faults  and  rolls  described  above;  for  it 
stopped  only  about  five  hundred  feet  short  of  the  Clark 
Vein  main  gangway  itself. 


44  COAL  MINES. 

To  the  east  of  the  Pittsburg  slope  a  similar  state  of 
affairs  exists  in  the  strike  and  dip  to  that  above  de- 
scribed in  the  western  part  of  the  Black  Diamond  com- 
pany's mines,  but  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale,  and  in 
an  opposite  direction.  Though  broken  in  the  middle 
by  a  large  fault,  the  gangways  here  run  far  to  the  south 
of  east;  and  the  dip  ako  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Pitts- 
burg  mine  is  considerably  less  than  it  is  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  slope.  Moreover,  as  already  stated,  the  works 
at  the  end  here  abut  directly  against  the  wall  of  a  great 
upthrow  of  some  three  or  four  hundred  feet  to  the  east. 

VENTILATION. 

In  mines  situated  as  these  are,  with  a  general  dip  of 
about  30°,  among  high  hills  and  deep  canons,  there  is 
rarely  much  difficulty  in  securing  good  ventilation,  if 
the  matter  be  properly  attended  to;  and  the  only  arti- 
ficial means  in  general  use  to  aid  the  natural  venti- 
lation at  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines  is  the  keeping  of  fires 
at  the  bottoms  of  the  ventilating  shafts.  In  only  one 
instance  has  mechanical  ventilation  been  resorted  to 
on  any  considerable  scale.  In  the  Lower  Mt.  Hope 
gangway  to  the  westward  of  a  point  about  twent}T-two 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  west  of  the  Black  Diamond 
shaft,  all  the  water  (and  its  quantity  is  considerable) 
which  issues  from  the  roof  and  floor  of  the  Clark  Vein, 
besides  being  a  solution  of  sulphates,  is  supersaturated 
with  sulphuretted  hydrogen  to  such  an  extent  that  on 
exposure  to  the  air  it  rapidly  forms  white  deposits  of 
sulphur  everywhere;  while  the  excess  of  gas  escaping 
contaminates  the  air  so  much  as  to  cause  serious  trou- 


CALIFORNIA.  45 

ble  by  its  effects  upon  the  eyes,  which  itr  quickly  ren- 
ders sore,  inflamed,  and  almost  blind,  probably  by 
reason  of  its  decomposition  with  the  formation  of  mi- 
nute quantities  of  sulphurous  and  sulphuric  acids  in 
contact  with  the  moisture  of  the  eyes.  It  was  found 
impossible,  with  the  ordinary  means  of  ventilation  em- 
ployed here,  to  sent  a  sufficient  volume  of  air  through 
this  portion  of  the  mine  to  keep  it  clear  enough  of  sul- 
phuretted hydrogen  to  enable  the  men  to  work  more 
than  a  very  few  hours  at  a  time  without  becoming  nearly 
blind.  The  trouble  at  last  became  so  serious  that  the 
men  absolutely  refused  to  work  there  without  better  air. 
The  experiment  was  tried  for  a  few  days  of  keeping 
chloride  of  lime  exposed  to  the  air  throughout  that  por- 
tion of  the  gangway  affected,  with  a  view  to  decompose 
and  absorb  the  deleterious  gas;  but  for  some  reason  it 
appeared  to  fail  to  accomplish  the  work,  while  the  men 
complained  that  the  pungent  odor  of  the  chloride  of  lime, 
in  addition  to  the  sulphur  gas,  only  made  matters  worse. 
Then  one  of  the  largest  sizes  of  Hoot's  patent  rotary 
blowers  was  obtained,  and,  driven  by  a  small  steam 
engine,  was  set  to  forcing  air  through  a  pipe  down  the 
the  Black  Diamond  shaft  and  into  that  part  of  the  mine, 
the  air  afterwards  finding  its  exit  from  the  mine  through 
a  ventilating  shaft  connecting  with  the  western  part  of 
the  Mt.  Hope  Gangway.  This  made  a  decided  improve- 
ment, but  was  yet  far  from  being  satisfactory.  The 
action  of  the  blower  was  therefore  reversed,  and  it  was 
made  to  exhaust  the  air,  which  then  entered  the  mine 
through  the  ventilating  shaft  just  mentioned.  This  did 
much  better,  and  the  work  in  this  part  of  the  mine  was 
resumed  and  continued,  though  slowly  and  with  diffi- 


46  COAL  MINES. 

culty;  for  the  blower,  after  all,  only  partially  removes 
the  gas,  enough  of  which  still  remains  to  make  it  very 
troublesome. 

There  is  a  little  fire-damp  in  all  the  beds  of  the  Mt. 
Diablo  mines,  and  there  are  now  and  then  localities 
which  it  is  necessary  to  watch  pretty  closely.  But  the 
quantity  of  this  gas  has  never  been  great  enough  to 
necessitate  the  general  use  of  the  safety-lamp  in  the 
workings;  and  it  has,  therefore,  only  been  used  as  a 
precautionary  means  for  testing  the  presence  of  the  gas 
in  certain  localities  where  it  was  known  that  small  quan- 
tities of  it  were  liable  to  collect.  Numerous  small  cas- 
ualties, resulting  in  the  more  or  less  severe  burning,  and 
occasionally  in  the  death  of  one  or  two  men  have,  how- 
ever, occurred  here  from  time  to  time,  from  explosions 
of  fire-damp,  nearly  all  of  which  have  originated  in  the 
gross  carelessness  of  the  sufferers  themselves  in  going 
with  naked  lights  into  the  top  of  blind  shoots  or  other 
places  which  had  been  standing  idle  for  awhile,  and 
where  they  knew,  or  ought  to  have  known,  that  fire- 
damp was  liable  to  be  present.  But  besides  these  minor 
casualties  there  have  also  occurred,  during  the  history 
of  the  mines,  three  or  four  explosions  of  greater  mag- 
nitude, which  cannot  be  said  to  have  resulted  from  the 
special  ignorance  or  carelessness  of  individual  miners. 
None  of  these  explosions  did  much  damage  to  the 
mines;  but  one  or  two  of  them  have  resulted  in  serious 
loss  of  life. 

The  worst  one  of  all  was  the  explosion,  or  more  prop- 
erly the  burning,  of  July  24,  1876,  on  the  Black  Dia- 
mond bed,  in  the  lower  and  eastern  part  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Company's  mines,  which  resulted  in  the  death 


CALIFORNIA.  47 

of  eleven  men.  This  was  occasioned  by  a.'* 'blown  out" 
shot.  There  was  no  explosive  mixture  present  where 
this  disaster  occurred  previous  to  the  firing  of  the  shot; 
for  the  men  were  working  all  along  there  with  naked 
lights,  and  the  ventilation  was  good  and  strong.  But 
on  the  firing  of  this  shot  (which  was  a  pretty  heavy  one, 
being  a  two  and  a  quarter  inch  hole,  charged  probably 
with  from  twenty  to  twenty-four  inches  of  black  pow- 
der), the  flame  traveled  between  two  and  three  hundred 
feet  along  the  face  of  the  coal,  following  a  crooked 
course  through  cross-cuts,  etc.,  developing  a  hardly  no- 
ticeable amount  of  explosive  force,  but  badly  burning 
all  the  men  whom  it  caught  in  its  course,  and  then  as- 
phyxiating both  them  and  others  by  the  after-damp 
which  followed  the  flash.  The  cause  of  this  explosion 
was  probably  two-fold.  First,  it  is  well  known  that  in 
coal  seams  containing  fire-damp,  any  diminution  in  the 
atmospheric  pressure,  whether  sudden  or  gradual,  is 
accompanied  by  a  correspondingly  sudden  or  gradual 
liberation  of  increased  quantities  of  fire-damp  from  the 
face  of  the  coal.  It  is  more  than  probable,  therefore, 
that  the  recoil,  which  in  an  elastic  medium  Like  the  air, 
and  especially  in  confined  localities,  must  instantly  fol- 
low the  first  impulse  of  the  heavy  concussion  of  such  a 
shot,  would  liberate  suddenly  from  the  adjacent  face  of 
the  coal  a  certain  quantity  of  fire-damp,  which  might 
issue  forth  quickly  enough,  and  be  sufficient  in  quantity 
to  catch  fire  either  from  the  flash  of  the  shot  itself,  or 
from  burning  particles  of  coal-dust  ignited  by  that 
flash.  Second,  the  part  of  the  mine  where  this  acci- 
dent happened  was  very  dry,  and  the  shot  itself  must 
have  raised  in  its  immediate  vicinity  a  dense  cloud  of 


48  COAL  MINES. 

fine  coal-dnst.  Now  recent  experiments  have  shown 
that  a  mixture  of  fire-damp  and  air  which  contains  far 
too  little  fire-damp  to  be  capable  of  either  exploding  or 
burning  by  itself  alone,  becomes  readily  explosive  if 
mixed  with  a  sufficient  quantity  of  impalpably  fine  coalr 
dust.  There  is  every  reason,  therefore,  to  believe  that  the 
propagation  of  the  flame  in  this  instance  was  effected  by 
an  intimate  mixture  of  the  air  with  a  certain  quantity 
of  fire-damp  and  a  dense  cloud  of  coal-dust,  the  pres- 
ence of  the  last  two  of  which  was  mainly  due  to  the 
concussion  of  the  shot  itself;  and  the  whole  affair  is 
strongly  illustrative  of  the  danger  of  the  use  of  powder 
in  coal  seams  where  fire-damp  is  known  to  exist. 

The  Mt.  Diablo  coal  is  liable,  under  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, to  spontaneous  combustion;  and,  in  the 
Black  Diamond  bed,  it  is  always  necessary  to  shut  up 
the  old  workings,  so  as  to  prevent  access  of  air  to  the 
gob,  which  would  otherwise  heat  and  eventually  take 
fire;  but  in  the  Clark  bed,  with  its  freedom  from  "bone'7 
and  its  good  sandstone  roof  and  floor,  no  such  precau- 
tion has  been  found  necessary. 

HAULAGE,  STORAGE,  AND  TRANSPORTATION. 

The  gauge  of  the  mine-tracks  is  different  in  the  differ- 
ent mines.  In  the  Pittsburg  mine  it  is  twenty-six 
inches;  while  in  the  Black  Diamond  mines  it  is  three 
feet.  The  size  and  shape  of  the  mine-cars  employed 
also  varies  somewhat  in  the  different  mines.  The  inside 
dimensions  of  those  used  by  the  Black  Diamond  Com- 
pany are  six  feet  six  inches  long,  two  feet  six  inches  wide, 
and  two  feet  eight  inches  high.  These  cars  are  built  of 


CALIFORNIA.  49 

wood,  banded  with  iron,  and  hold  about  a  ton  each  of 
loose  coal. 

In  the  Black  Diamond  Company's  mines,  the  under- 
ground hauling  is  done  entirely  by  horses  and  mules; 
but  in  some  of  the  other  mines,  and  especially  in  the 
Union  and  Eureka,  a  great  deal  of  it  has  been  done  by 
hand,  the  men  pushing  the  cars. 

No  coal-breaking  machinery  has  ever  been  used  or 
needed  here.  In  fact,  one  serious  trouble  with  this 
soft  coal  is  that  it  crumbles  too  easily  and  makes  too 
much  slack  without  any  other  breaking  than  that  which 
it  necessarily  gets  in  mining  and  handling. 

The  bunkers  at  the  mines  are  furnished  with  screens 
which  separate  the  marketable  coal  into  two  sizes  only, 
known  as  "coal"  and  "  sceenings,"  respectively.  But 
this  screening  is  often  very  imperfectly  done.  The  slack 
which  falls  through  the  finest  screen  is  generally  thrown 
away,  though  within  the  last  few  years  considerable  of 
it  has  been  burned  under  the  boilers  at  the  mines,  and 
occasionally  a  little  of  it  has  been  sold  for  various  pur- 
poses. The  Black  Diamond  Company's  bunkers  are 
also  furnished  at  the  top  with  automatic  dumping  ar- 
rangements, so  that  the  mine-cars  dump  themselves 
into  the  bunkers.  The  size  of  the  bunkers  varies,  of 
course,  with  the  requirements  of  the  different  mines. 
The  largest  one  ever  built  here  is  that  which  receives 
the  coal  from  the  Black  Diamond  shaft.  This  bunker 
has  a  capacity  of  about  sixteen  hundred  tons,  i.  e., 
eleven  hundred  tons  of  coal  and  five  hundred  tons  of 
screenings.  It  stands  at  a  distance  of  some  five  hun- 
dred feet  or  more  from  the  mouth  of  the  shaft,  and  the 
loaded  cars  are  hauled  to  it  and  the  empty  ones  hauled 


50  CO  A  L  MINES. 

back  to  the  shaft  by  an  endless  wire-rope  worked  by  a 
clip-pulley,  which  is  driven  by  a  small  steam  engine. 
The  floor  of  this  bunker  has  a  pitch  of  33°,  and  the 
vertical  height  between  the  mine-car  track  above  it  and 
the  railroad  track  beneath  it  is  eighty-four  feet. 

The  Black  Diamond  railroad  is  a  trifle  over  five  and 
eight-tenths  miles  in  length.  Of  this,  the  first  two  and 
eight-tenths  miles  from  the  river  to  the  edge  of  the  hills 
is  straight  and  has  a  grade  which,  though  not  uniform, 
being  less  near  the  river  than  it  is  near  the  hills,  never- 
theless averages  for  the  whole  two  and  eight-tenths  miles 
about  sixty  feet  to  the  mile.  The  remaining  three  miles 
in  the  canon,  from  the  edge  of  the  hills  up  to  Norton  - 
ville,  is  very  crooked,  and  has  an  average  grade  of  about 
one  hundred  and  ninety  feet  to  the  mile.  The  maximum 
grade,  however,  is  much  heavier  than  this,  and  is  sit- 
uated at  the  upper  end  of  the  road  nearest  the  mine, 
where,  for  a  distance  of  five-eighths  of  a  mile,  the  uni- 
form grade  is  two  hundred  and  ninety-three  and  three- 
fourths  feet  to  the  mile.  The  minimum  radius  of 
curvature  in  this  road  is  three  hundred  twenty-one 
and  one-fourth  feet,  corresponding  to  about  an  18° 
curve.  This,  also,  is  at  the  upper  end  of  the  road, 
leading  to  one  of  the  bunkers.  Its  use  was  necessitated 
by  the  position  of  the  bunker  and  the  narrowness  of  the 
canon.  It  is  just  about  as  sharp  a  curve  as  the  loco- 
motives employed  here  will  travel  on  without  leaving 
the  track. 

The  cars  now  employed  on  this  road  have  flat  wooden 
bottoms,  with  rectangular  sheet-iron  sides  and  ends 
strengthened  with  angle  iron.  One  of  the  ends  consists 
of  a  door,  hung  from  a  bolt  which  runs  across  the  top, 


CALIFORNIA.  51 

and  furnished  with  a  strong  latch  on  each  side.  The 
cars  are  four-wheeled.  Each  car  occupies  about  ten 
feet  of  track,  and  stands  about  six  feet  two  inches 
high  above  the  rails.  The  interior  dimensions  of  the 
car  body  are  as  follows  :  length,  eight  feet;  width,  six 
feet  four  inches;  height,  three  feet  four  and  one-half 
inches.  These  cars  weigh,  on  the  average,  about  four 
thousand  pounds  apiece,  and  each  car  carries  from  ten 
thousand  to  eleven  thousand  pounds,  or  a  trifle  over 
four  and  one-half  tons  of  coal.  From  twelve  to  sixteen 
of  these  cars  form  an  ordinary  coal  train.  The  loco- 
motive merely  hauls  the  empty  cars  up  to  the  mine. 
When  loaded,  the  train  runs  down  to  the  landing  by  its 
own  gravity,  and  it  needs,  of  course,  careful  attend- 
ance at  the  brakes  fo  prevent  it  from  running  too  fast. 
Indeed,  whenever  the  track  is  muddy  and  slippery,  as 
is  often  the  case  in  the  rainy  season,  it  is  found  neces- 
sary, in  addition  to  the  most  careful  handling  of  the 
brakes,  to  sand  the  track  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  be- 
fore the  descent  of  every  train  over  that  portion  of  the 
road  which  has  the  heaviest  grade. 

The  Pittsburg  railroad  is  of  nearly  the  same  length 
as  the  Black  Diamond,  and  is  very  similar  to  it  both  in 
the  distribution  and  in  the  amount  of  its  grades  and 
curvatures.  The  cars  used  upon  this  railroad  are  of 
iron,  but  of  somewhat  less  capacity  than  those  -above 
described,  and  also  somewhat  different  in  construction, 
being  arranged  to  dump  through  trap-doors  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  car,  while  the  Black  Diamond  cars  run  on 
to  a  special  dumping  arrangement  at  the  end  of  the 
wharf,  which  then  tips  up  with  the  car  upon  it  till  the 
floor  of  the  car  makes  an  angle  of  35°  or  so  with  the 


52  COAL  MINES. 

horizon,  when  the  door  at  the  lower  end  being  unlatched, 
the  coal  runs  out. 


PUMPING  AND  DRAINAGE. 

There  has  never  been  any  general  system  of  drainage 
for  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines  ;  but  each  company  has 
pumped  out  its  own  water  independently  of  all  the  rest. 
In  the  year  1869,  I  made  a  careful  survey  to  ascertain 
what  could  be  done  in  the  way  of  a  drain  tunnel,  and 
found  that  a  tunnel  about  seven  thousand  feet  in  length 
from  a  point  in  the  SomersvilJe  canon  to  the  Clark  bed 
would  drain  all  the  mines  of  Nortonville  and  Somers- 
ville  to  a  depth  of  only  about  three  hundred  feet  above 
low  water  in  the  San  Joaquin  river,  or  in  other  words, 
to  a  point  a  little  below  the  lowest  levels  ever  yet 
reached  by  the  workings  in  any  of  the  mines,  excepting 
those  from  the  bottom  of  the  Independent  shaft. 

This  tunnel  might  have  been  driven  for  a  cost  of  only 
about  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  at  the  time  when  the 
survey  was  made,  there  was  talk  of  doing  it.  But  the 
different  companies  to  be  benefited  by  it  could  not 
not  agree  as  to  the  exact  proportion  of  its  cost  which 
ought  to  be  paid  by  each  of  them  respectively;  and  so 
after  talking  awhile  to  no  purpose,  the  matter  was 
dropped;  since  which  time  the  Black  Diamond,  the 
Union  and  the  Pittsburg  companies  have  all  three  of 
them  been  lifting  their  water  to  points  over  five  hundred 
feet  vertically  higher  than  the  level  at  which  this  tun- 
nel would  have  drained  them  all;  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  from  then  up  to  the  present  time,  the  aggregate 
cost  of  the  item  of  pumping  alone  has  been  at  least 


CALIFORNIA.  53 

four  or  five  times  what  the  total  cost  of  the  tunnel  would 
have  been.  And  this  is  not,  by  any  means,  the  only  in- 
stance in  which  the  existence  and  rivalry  of  so  many 
different  companies  within  so  small  a  field,  combined 
with  short-sighted  policy,  and  bad  management  in  other 
ways,  have  caused  the  expenditure  of  large  sums  of 
money  which  are  practically  wasted,  and  which  might 
otLerwise  have  been  saved  to  the  owners  of  the  mines. 
The  Independent  shaft  was  a  bad  job,  as  well  as  a  bad 
speculation,  from  beginning  to  end;  and  the  new  Black 
Diamond  shaft  itself,  with  all  its  machinery,  although  a 
splendid  piece  of  workmanship,  was  an  unnecessary  ex- 
pense, inasmuch  as  the  Mt.  Hope  counter-slope,  which  is 
large,  commodious,  well-timbered,  protected  by  heavy 
pillars  on  either  side,  and  furnished  with  a  double  track, 
and  a  pumping  compartment  besides,  was  already  down 
to  the  same  level  as  the  present  foot  of  the  shaft,  before 
the  sinking  of  the  shaft  was  begun;  and  it  would  have 
been  easy  to  have  hoisted  through  this  slope,  at  no 
greater  expense  than  it  will  now  cost  to  hoist  through 
the  shaft  all  the  coal  that  is  likely  to  ever  come  up 
through  the  shaft. 

It  would  be  easy  to  point  out  many  other  ways  .in 
which  money  has  been  wastefully  spent  at  the  Mt. 
Diablo  mines;  but  I  will  only  mention  here  one  other 
matter  in  this  connection.  Situated  as  these  mines 
are,  their  whole  extent  from  the  eastern  limit  of  the 
Pittsburg  to  the  western  limit  of  the  Black  Diamond 
company's  workings,  was  none  too  great  for  a  single 
colliery;  and  if  in  the  early  history  of  the  mines  the 
various  companies  had  combined  into  a  single  organi- 
zation to  control  and  manage  the  whole,  then  not  only 


54  COAL  MINES. 

the  Black  Diamond  railroad  itself,  but  also  the  whole 
establishment  of  shaft,  slopes  and  machinery  for  pump- 
ing and  hoisting  at  the  village  of  Nortonville  would 
have  been  needless  and  superfluous,  and  their  entire  cost 
might  have  been  saved;  for  a  single  railroad  in  the 
Somersville  canon  would  have  amply  sufficed  to  trans- 
port all  the  coal  which  these  mines  have  ever  furnished, 
or  ever  will  furnish;  while,  at  the  same  time  every  ton 
of  it  could  have  been  brought  to  daylight  in  this  canon 
more  cheaply  than  it  has  been  brought  to  the  surface 
at  the  various  openings  through  which  it  has  actually 
been  extracted. 

For  this  purpose,  the  tunnel  above  referred  to  as  a 
proposed  drain  tunnel,  which  was  never  driven,  should 
not  only  have  been  driven,  but  should  have  been  made 
a  large  sized  working  tunnel  and  furnished  with  a  double 
track  and  all  other  facilities  for  the  rapid  extraction  of 
coal. 

I  do  not  think  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  if  this  had 
been  done,  and  if  the  general  management  of  the  mines 
had  been  at  the  same  time  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  com- 
petent engineer,  then  the  total  production  of  these 
mines  up  to  the  present  time  (which  amounts  approx- 
imately to  one  and  three-quarter  million  tons)  might 
have  been  furnished  at  an  average  cost  price  of  one  dol- 
lar less  per  ton  than  under  existing  circumstances  its 
actual  average  cost  has  been.  In  other  words,  I  be- 
lieve that  up  to  the  present  time  the  aggregate  sum  of 
one  million  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars 
could  have  been  saved  to  the  owners  of  the  Mt.  Diablo 
coal  mines,  if  all  the  natural  advantages  which  the  sit- 
uation of  the  field  presented  had  been  utilized  with  the 
best  economy. 


CALIFORNIA.  55 

PEACOCK  AND  SAN  FKANCISCO  MINES. 

To  the  west  of  the  Black  Diamond  Company's  Mines, 
for  a  distance  of  a  mile  or  two,  there  has  been,  in  the 
past,  considerable  prospecting  done  for  coal  among  the 
hills,  and  a  number  of  slopes  and  tunnels  have  been 
driven  some  distance  underground,  at  different  points, 
upon  the  outcrops  of  small  seams  of  coal.  But  nothing 
has  ever  been  discovered  here  of  any  value,  and  the 
only  two  localities  worth  mentioning  now  are  the  old 
"Peacock"  and  "San  Francisco"  mines. 

The  first  of  these  was  unquestionably  upon  the  Black 
Diamond  bed,  and  is  situated  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
south-westerly  from  the  extreme  weste'rn  limit  to  which 
the  Black  Diamond  Company  pushed  their  old  "Upper 
Black  Diamond  Gangway."  This  gangway,  at  its  face, 
when  abandoned,  was  running  S.  46°  30'  W.,  true 
course,  or  about  S.  30°  W.,  magnetic,  and  the  clip  of 
the  bed  at  the  same  point  was  about  20°  to  the  north- 
west. It  will  also  be  remembered  that  the  "Lower 
Black  Diamond  Gangway,"  as  well  as  the  corresponding 
levels  on  the  Clark  bed,  in  this  portion  of  the  Black 
Diamond  Company's  mines,  all  show  the  same  great 
curve  of  the  strata  here  to  the  south  in  going  west. 
Yet  there  is  no  sudden  break  of  anjr  considerable  mag- 
nitude so  far  as  those  works  extend.  But  at  the  Pea- 
cock mine,  only  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  distant,  we 
find  the  bed  striking  S.  75°  W.,  magnetic,  and  dipping 
to  the  north  at  an  angle  of  45°,  thus  proving  that  within 
this  short  distance  there  is  a  great  disturbance  of  some 
kind,  resulting  in  a  sudden  change  of  some  45°  in  the 
direction  of  the  strike,  and  an  increase  of  about  25°  in 
the  amount  of  dip. 


56  COAL  MINES. 

I  am  not  informed  as  to  the  full  extent  of  the  work 
which  was  done  in  the  "  Peacock,"  as  it  was  already 
abandoned  before  I  first  saw  it  in  1868.  But  a  slope 
was  sunk  for  ventilation,  and  a  tunnel  was  driven  at 
least  some  eight  hundred  or  nine  hundred  feet  in  length. 
The  ground,  however,  was  found  to  be  badly  broken 
and  crushed,  and  the  coal  was  soft  and  worthless. 

The  San  Francisco  mine  is  situated  about  half  a  mile 
to  the  west  of  the  Peacock.  A  slope  was  sunk  here 
about  three  hundred  feet,  on  a  bed  whose  dip  is  about 
41°  at  the  surface  of  the  ground,  but  increases  to  50° 
at  the  depth  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet,  from  which 
point  a  gangway  was  driven  east  two  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-five feet,  and  west  about  seventy-five  feet.  At  the 
eastern  face  of  this  gangway  the  coal  was  about  two 
feet  thick,  and  had  a  course  of  N.  70°  E.,  magnetic, 
and  a  dip  of  65°  to  the  north.  Below  this  stratum  of 
coal  there  was  about  six  feet  of  soft  clay-rock,  and  then 
another  stratum  of  coal  about  one  foot  thick.  Above 
it  there  was  also  another  small  streak  of  coal  separated 
from  it  by  a  layer  of  clay-slate.  Small  faults  were  very 
numerous  here,  and  the  coal  was  soft  and  friable,  and 
never  paid  to  mine.  A  little  of  it  was  once  hauled  to 
the  village  of  Pacheco,  for  sale.  But  as  early  as  1869, 
the  work  was  already  abandoned.  It  is  very  probable, 
though  not  certain,  that  this  mine  also  is  on  the  Black 
Diamond  bed. 

CENTRAL  MINE. 

Passing  now  to  the  eastward  from  Somersville,  the 
first  mine  which  we  encounter  is  the  "Central"  better 
known,  perhaps,  as  "Stewart's  Mine."  This  mine  is 


CALIFORNIA.  57 

situated  in  a  steep  and  narrow  ridge  which  was  nearly 
east  and  west  across  the  northern  part  of  section  10, 
and  the  mine  itself  is  in  the  north-east  quarter  of  this 
section.  It  was  originally  opened  by  a  level  tunnel 
driven  northerly  from  a  point  considerably  beneath  the 
line  of  outcrop  of  the  beds  in  the  steep  and  almost 
precipitous  southern  face  of  the  ridge. 

The  course  of  this  tunnel  is  just  about  north  magnetic, 
and  its  length  to  the  Clark  bed  is  about  one  thousand 
and  thirty  feet.  It  of  course  cuts  through  the  underly- 
ing beds.  The  tunnel  is  not  at  right  angles  to  the  gang- 
way, the  course  of  the  latter  being  somewhat  to  the 
north  of  west  magnetic.  There  are  exposed  in  this  tun- 
nel, beneath  the  Clark  bed,  four  distinct  seams  of  coal, 
none  of  which,  however,  are  here  of  any  value.  Start- 
ing from  the  Clark  bed  and  going  south  along  the  tun- 
nel towards  its  mouth,  we  find  these  seams  as  follows: 
The  first  one  at  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  thirty 
feet  shows  eighteen  inches  of  impure  coal.  The  second 
one,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  feet  further 
south,  shows  twenty-two  inches  of  similar  material. 
The  third  one,  seventy-three  feet  further  south,  is  nine- 
teen inches  thick;  and  the  fourth  one,  supposed  to  be 
the  Black  Diamond  bed,  is  one  hundred  and  eighteen 
feet  still  further  south.  There  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt,  in  spite  of  differences  and  diminished  thickness  in 
the  section  of  the  strata  between  them,  that  the  two  beds 
here  called  the  Clark  bed  and  the  Black  Diamond  bed, 
respectively,  are  in  reality  the  same  beds  as  those  which 
bear  these  names  at  Nortonville  and  Somersville.  In 
this  mine,  some  of  the  small  beds  between  the  two  con- 
tain considerable  gypsum  in  thin  sheets  and  scales,  fill- 


58  COAL  MINES. 

ing  seams  in  the  soft  and  worthless  coal.  On  the  Black 
Diamond  bed  a  gangway  was  once  driven  here  some 
distance  both  east  and  west  from  the  tunnel,  and  it  is 
said  that  the  bed  was  from  three  to  four  feet  thick,  and 
that  about  a  thousand  tons  of  coal  were  extracted  from 
it,  which,  however,  was  of  very  poor  qualitj^,  being  both 
soft  and  "bony."  It  had  been  entirely  abandoned 
previous  to  my  first  examination  of  the  mine  in  1869. 

In  April,  1870,  a  gangway  had  been  driven  here,  on 
the  Clark  bed,  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  feet  east, 
and  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  feet  west  from  the 
tunnel,  and  a  good  deal  of  coal  extracted,  the  bed  aver- 
aging about  thirty-nine  inches  in  thickness,  and  clipping 
to  the  north  at  an  angle  of  28°  or  29°.  Just  west  of  the 
tunnel,  a  large  fault,  consisting  of  an  upthrow  to  the 
west,  estimated  at  eighteen  feet,  crosses  the  gangwa}T 
very  obliquely,  running  north-west  and  south-east.  To 
the  west  of  this  there  were  no  more  faults  so  far  as  the 
gangway  was  then  driven,  and  the  coal  was  bright  and 
clean,  but  soft  and  friable.  To  the  east  from  the  tunnel 
there  was  a  constant  succession  of  small  and  irregular 
jumps  all  the  way  to  the  face  of  the  gangway,  and  the 
coal  here  was  badly  crushed  and  very  soft.  Above  this 
gangway  the  breasts  had  then  been  worked  to  a  maxi- 
mum height  of  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  the 
total  distance  on  the  dip  of  the  bed,  up  to  the  outcrop, 
being  about  seven  hundred  feet.  And  some  of  the  best, 
i.  e.,  the  hardest,  as  well  as  the  cleanest  coal  ever  taken 
from  the  mine  had  come  from  the  top  of  these  breasts, 
up  nearest  to  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

In  connection  with  the  popular  fancy  that  coal  must 
of  necessity  improve  indefinitely  in  quality  with  indefi- 


CALIFORNIA.  59 

nite  increase  of  depth  beneath  the  surface,  it  may  be 
well  here  to  state  the  fact  that  at  Nortonville,  the  mines 
have  never,  even  from  their  lowest  depths,  produced 
any  better  or  harder  coal  than  was  a  great  deal  of  that 
which  came  from  the  top  of  the  very  highest  workings 
on  the  Black  Diamond  bed,  more  than  five  hundred  feet 
above  the  old  "  Upper  Black  Diamond  Gangway." 
And  this  is  not  all:  It  is  true,  as  a  general  rule,  through- 
out all  tlie  Mt.  Diablo  mines,  that  when  a  depth  of 
from  one  hundred  to  three  hundred  feet  is  attained, 
measured  on  the  dip  of  the  bed  from  the  outcrop,  there 
is  after  and  below  that  no  further  improvement  in  the 
quality  of  the  coal  which  can  be  shown  to  be  to  any  ex- 
tent dependent  upon  or  connected  with  the  additional 
increase  in  the  depth. 

Since  1870,  a  tunnel  has  been  driven  in  Stewart's 
mine  from  the  Clark  bed  northerly  entirely  through  the 
ridge  and  out  to  daylight  on  its  northern  side.  Since 
the  completion  of  this  tunnel  all  the  coal  mined  has 
been  taken  out  through  it,  thus  saving  some  two  miles 
of  cartage  around  and  over  the  hill. 

It  is  not  probable  that  this  mine  has  ever  been  a 
profitable  one  to  work.  And  though  it  has  produced  in 
the  aggregate  a  considerable  quantity  of  coal,  it  has  not 
been  worked  continuously,  but  irregularly  and  spas- 
modically, sometimes  lying  idle  for  many  months,  and 
then  again  producing  as  high  as  from  nine  hundred  to 
one  thousand  tons  of  coal  per  month.  After  this  sort 
of  fitful  life  for  some  eight  or  ten  years,  it  has  recently 
again  shut  down,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  will  ever 
be  much  more  worked  hereafter. 

Going  east  from  Stewart's  mine,  we  next  find  in  the 


60  GOAL  MINES. 

bottom  of  a  canon  near  Coclirane's  house  and  close  to 
the  centr^  of  section  11,  the  outcrops  of  two  beds,  which 
in  all  probability  represent  the  Clark  bed  and  the  Black 
Diamond  bed  respectively.  At  this  point  the  beds  run 
very  nearly  east  and  west,  and  dip  to  the  north  at  an 
angle  which  Cochrane  states  to  be  about  32°. 

Some  prospecting  was  done  at  this  locality  years  ago, 
but  the  coal  was  not  found  good  enough  to  warrant 
mining. 

Beyond  Cochrane's,  as  we  go  east,  the  thickness  of 
the  strata  and  the  characteristics  of  the  various  beds 
themselves  change  so  much  that,  though  there  is,  of 
course,  no  lack  of  positive  opinion  on  the  subject 
among  some  of  the  men  who  are  pretty  familiar  with 
the  ground;  and  though  there  are  here  and  there  a  few 
facts  known  which  really  do  point  to  some  probability 
in  the  matter  with  reference  to  certain  beds,  yet  it  is 
impossible,  in  the  light  of  all  the  developments  hitherto 
made,  to  recognize  anywhere,  with  any  certainty,  a  sin- 
gle bed  as  being  identical  with  either  the  Clark  or  the 
Black  Diamond  bed  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines. 

The  next  development  to  the  east  of  Cochrane's,  is 
in  the  north-east  part  of  the  south-west  quarter  of  sec- 
tion 12.  Here  a  slope  was  sunk  about  two  hundred 
feet  some  years  ago,  in  a  direction  of  north  16°  west 
magnetic  upon  a  bed  of  coal  with  a  pitch  of  about  27°. 
There  was  no  coal  visible  here  at  the  surface  of  the 
ground,  but  only  a  slightly  carbonaceous  shale  for  the 
first  eighty  or  ninety  feet.  But  then  the  coal  began  to 
come  in,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  slope  there  is  said  to 
have  been  three  feet  of  pretty  clean,  though  rather  soft, 
coal,  with  a  good  sandstone  roof.  It  is  also  said  that 


CALIFORNIA.  61 

two  small  schooner  loads  were  once  shipped  from  the 
bottom  of  this  slope. 

EMPIRE  MINE. 

The  next  development  is  at  the  locality  now  known 
as  the  "Empire  Mine."  This  is  in  the  south-west  part 
of  the  south-east  quarter  of  section  12. 

A  slope  was  originally  sunk  here  about  two  hundred 
feet  in  1860  or  1861,  when  the  work  was  stopped  by  the 
influx  of  water  which  the  parties  had  not  the  means  to 
handle.  There  was  visible  here  at  the  surface  of  the 
ground  only  a  little  streak  of  soft  clay-shale  about  eight 
or  ten  inches  thick,  which  was  of  rather  a  light  yellow- 
ish hue,  being  but  very  slightly  colored  by  carbonaceous 
matter,  and  having  sandstone  immediately  above  and 
below  it.  This  could  not  be  called  a  very  promising 
outcrop,  certainly.  But,  on  going  down,  it  was  found 
that  this  streak  of  shale  increased  steadily  and  rapidly 
in  thickness,  and  also  grew  rapidly  more  and  more  car- 
bonaceous, till,  at  the  depth  of  one  hundred  feet  slope 
distance,  it  had  already  developed  into  a  four  and  a  half 
foot  bed  of  what  might  very  properly  be  called  coal, 
though  it  was  still  impure  and  very  soft  and  friable. 
Its  quality  still  continued  to  improve  rapidly  to  the 
bottom  of  the  slope.  It  was,  however,  abandoned. 

But  in  the  year  1875,  Mr.  George  Hawkshurst,  the 
superintendent  of  the  Union  mine,  at  Somersville,  in 
connection  with  one  or  two  other  parties,  again  took 
hold  of  this  old  slope,  cleaned  it  out,  enlarged  it,  fur- 
nished it  with  a  double  track,  put  up  pumping  and 
hoisting  machinery,  and  sunk  it  to  the  depth  of  six 


62  COAL  MINES. 

hundred  feet  (slope  distance),  and  then  drove  a  gang- 
way both  ways  from  its  foot. 

My  last  visit  to  this  property  was  December  11,  1876. 
At  this  time  the  gangway  was  driven  about  three  hun- 
dred feet  west  and  nearly  four  hundred  feet  east  from 
the  slope,  with  a  general  course  of  N.  75°  E.,  magnetic, 
the  dip  of  the  bed  being  about  23°,  and  the  direction  of 
the  slope  itself  being  N.  6°E.,  magnetic. 

The  coal  along  this  gangway  ranges  from  three  feet 
six  inches  to  a  little  over  four  feet  in  thickness.  At  the 
west  face  of  the  gangway  it  was  four  feet  three  inches 
thick.  Of  this,  the  upper  twelve  inches  was  tolerably 
clean  coal;  the  next  twelve  inches  was  "  bony,"  and  the 
lower  two  feet  three  inches  was  clean  coal,  though  rather 
softer  than  the  average  Mt.  Diablo  coal.  The  floor  of 
the  bed  is  sandstone.  Along  the  roof  of  it  there  runs  a 
stratum  of  from  live  to  eight  inches  of  soft  clay-slate, 
which,  however,  is  not  continuous,  the  solid  sandstone 
sometimes  coming  down  to  the  coal.  Above  this  little 
streak  of  slate  there  is  everywhere  good  solid  sandstone. 
In  the  eastern  part  of  the  gangway  there  is  one  fault, 
which  consists  of  a  down-throw  to  the  east  of  just  about 
the  thickness  of  the  vein.  West  of  the  slope,  there  are 
only  one  or  two  little  jumps,  of  a  few  inches  each. 

From  a  point  a  few  feet  east  of  the  foot  of  the  slope,  a 
tunnel  was  driven  south  some  three  hundred  feet  through 
the  sandstone,  in  order  to  strike  an  underlying  bed  which 
had  been  previously  discovered  by  a  little  shaft  sunk 
about  ninety  feet  south  of  the  mouth  of  the  slope  and 
one  hundred  feet  deep.  This  bed,  as  seen  in  the  shaft, 
is  said  to  consist  of  three  feet  of  good  clean  coal,  like 
the  bottom  bench  of  the  upper  bed,  without  any  "  bone" 


CALIFORNIA.  63 

and  with  good  sandstone  roof  and  floor.  This  bed  they 
had  not  yet  reached  in  the  tunnel  at  the  time  oi'  my 
visit,  though  at  a  distance  of  a  little  less  than  two  hun- 
dred feet  from  the  upper  bed  they  had  passed  through 
a  small  coal  seam  about  eighteen  inches  thick.  Since 
that  time,  however,  they  have  struck  the  lower  bed  in 
the  tunnel,  and  found  it,  as  I  am  told,  to  consist  here  of 
a  bottom  bench  of  twenty-two  or  twenty-three  inches  of 
clean  coal,  overlaid  by  about  fourteen  inches  of  worth- 
less "bone."  The  appearance  of  this  "bone'  at  the 
depth  where  the  tunnel  strikes  it,  while  there  was  no 
"  bone"  at  the  bottom  of  the  little  shaft  so  much  nearer 
the  surface  of  the  ground,  is  not  an  encouraging  fact  with 
regard  to  the  future  prospects  for  a  mine  upon  this  bed. 

At  a  point  some  six  hundred  feet  south  of  the  mouth 
of  the  slope  and  very  close  to  the  section  line  between 
sections  12  and  13,  there  has  been  another  little  shaft 
sunk  about  ninety  feet,  and  from  the  bottom  of  it  a 
drill-hole  was  pushed  some  thirty  feet  lower.  They  are 
reported  to  have  passed  through  several  little  streaks  of 
coal  in  this  shaft,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  drill-hole  to 
have  struck  something  which  they  believe  to  be  the 
Black  Diamond  bed,  as  they  assume  the  bed  upon 
which  the  slope  is  sunk  to  be  the  Clark  bed,  and  the 
one  struck  in  the  tunnel  to  be  one  of  the  "Little  Veins" 
between  the  two.  But  this  assumption,  though  not  im- 
probable, is,  as  already  stated,  by  no  means  proven. 

A  recent  survey  shows  that  the  mouth  of  the  Empire 
mine  is  about  four  hundred  feet  above  tide-water,  and 
that  a  railroad  from  there  to  the  village  of  Antioch,  on 
the  San  Joaquin  river,  will  be  about  five  and  a  half 
miles  long,  and  will  have  two  tunnels,  aggregating 


64  COAL  MINES. 

something  over  one  thousand  feet  in  length.     It  is  the 
present  intention  of  the  owners  to  build  this  road. 

TEUTONIA  MINE. 

Next  east  of  the  Empire  mine  comes  the  old  "Teu- 
tonia."  This  is  in  the  south  part  of  the  south-west 
quarter  of  section  7  of  township  1  north,  range  2  east, 
the  month  of  the  mine  being  only  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  north  of  the  section  line.  This  mine  was 
furnished  with  steam  hoisting  and  pumping  machinery. 
But  at  the  time  of  my  first  visit  to  it  in  September, 
1869,  it  had  already  been  idle  and  abandoned  for  some 
two  years,  and  nothing  has  been  done  there  since.  Ac- 
cording to  the  best  information  which  I  have  been  able 
to  obtain,  however,  relating  to  this  mine,  the  slope, 
which  was  furnished  with  a  double  track  and  with 
sheet-iron  mine-cars,  went  down  upon  a  bed  of  coal 
about  four  hundred  feet,  with  a  pitch  of  about  26°. 
From  the  bottom  of  the  slope  a  gangway  was  driven 
east  something  like  one  hundred  feet.  Just  west  of  the 
slope  the  bed  was  broken  by  a  large  fault  jumping  up 
to  west,  beyond  which  the  work  was  never  carried. 
The  bed  was  about  thirty-six  inches  thick,  the  lower 
half  of  it  being  bright,  clean,  shelly  coal,  not  very  hard, 
and  the  upper  half  being  "bony."  It  will  be  noticed 
that  this  description  of  the  bed  itself  is  remarkably  like 
that  of  the  bed  which  was  struck  by  the  tunnel  in  the 
Empire  mine  in  the  latter  part  of  December,  1876; 
and  it  is  indeed  not  at  all  unlikely  that  it  may  be  in 
reality  the  same  bed. 

The  fact  is  worth  noticing  here  that  on  October  11, 


CALIFORNIA.  65 

1875,  before  the  underlying  bed  had  been  found  at  the 
Empire  mine,  Mr.  J.  Cruikshank  (who  is  well  informed 
as  to  the  early  work  which  was  done  in  this  region),  in 
some  notes  which  he  gave  me,  placed  the  Teutonia 
slope  upon  a  bed  underlying  the  "Clark  Yein,"  and 
located  the  outcrop  of  the  "  Clark  Yein"  itself  at  a  point 
some  distance  to  the  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Teutonia 
slope. 

On  the  north-east  quarter  of  section  18,  township  1 
north,  range  2  east,  there  is  another  old  slope,  known 
as  the  "Israel  Opening."  This  slope  is  said  to  be  some 
two  hundred  feet  deep,  with  a  pitch  of  about  25°.  It 
is  said,  furthermore,  that  at  its  bottom  there  was  three 
feet  of  clean  and  tolerably  hard  coal,  and  that  some 
rooms  were  opened  and  several  cargoes  of  coal  once 
shipped  from  here.  It  is  supposed  that  this  slope  is 
on  a  bed  which  underlies  the  one  on  which  the  Teu- 
tonia slope  is  sunk. 

On  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  16,  township  1 
north,  range  2  east,  there  are  several  small  openings, 
only  one  of  which  is  worth  mentioning  now.  This  is  a 
slope  which  runs  down  about  north  magnetic  with  an 
average  pitch  of  21°.  It  is  said  to  be  about  two  hun- 
dred feet  deep,  and  also  that  at  the  bottom  of  it  there 
were  three  feet  of  clean  coal,  with  sandstone  roof  and 
floor.  In  December,  1876,  the  lower  part  of  this  slope 
was  full  of  water,  down  to  the  surface  of  which  it  was 
one  hundred  and  thirty -five  feet,  and  at  this  depth  there 
was  nothing  like  good  coal  to  be  seen,  but  only  a  streak 
of  dirty  "  croppings,"  about  one  foot  in  thickness. 


COAL  MINES. 


KANCHO  DE  Los  MEGANOS. 

On  going  still  further  to  the  east  from  here,  there  is 
for  some  distance  hardly  any  exposure  of  the  rocks  at 
the  surface,  and  there  have  never  been  any  holes  sunk 
until  we  reach  the  south-east  quarter  of  section  22,  and 
the  north-east  quarter  of  section  27,  upon  the  Rancho 
de  Los  Meganos,  in  township  1  north,  range  2  east. 
Here  there  are  known  to  exist  at  least  three  beds  of 
coal  of  workable  thickness  associated  with  heavy  de- 
posits of  a  good  quality  of  fire-clay. 

A  small  shaft  in  the  south  part  of  section  22,  known 
as  the  "  Hoisting  Shaft,"  and  eighty-eight  feet  in  depth, 
shows  the  following  section  of  the  strata,  the  measure- 
ments being  vertical,  and  beginning  at  the  top  or  mouth 
of  the  shaft: 

Feet.  Inches. 

Clay  and  clayey  material ....  34  4 

Black  clay 14  8 

Coal 2  4 

White  clay,  hard  and  somewhat  sandy 4  8 

Coal 0  4 

Blue  fire-clay 5  0 

Coal 3  6 

Clay  (with  three  regular  coal-seams,  about  one 

foot  thick  each) 8  0 

Coal 7  0 

Clay 3  0 

Coal 1  2 

Clay 4  0 

There  has  been  mined  here,  chiefly  from  the  "7  foot" 
and  the  "3  J  foot"  beds,  through  shallow  slopes  and 


CALIFORNIA.  67 

shafts,  without  the  use  of  other  power  than  that  of  hand 
and  horse,  an  aggregate  of  probably  somewhere  between 
five  thousand  and  ten  thousand  tons  of  coal,  most  of  which 
has  been  used  under  the  boilers  at  the  "Engine  Shaft." 

The  general  course  of  strike  of  the  beds  here  is  about 
N.  72°  W.  magnetic,  and  their  dip  to  the  north-east,  but 
so  far  as  yet  explored  somewhat  variable  in  amount, 
ranging  from  16°  to  26°  at  different  points. 

The  "Engine  Shaft"  is  sunk  at  a  point  about  eleven 
hundred  feet  north-easterly  from  the  line  of  outcrop  of 
the  beds,  is  about  three  hundred  and  eighty  feet  deep, 
and  is  divided  into  three  compartments,  two  hoisting 
and  one  pumping,  each  compartment  being  8  ft.  x5  ft. 
clear  inside  of  timbers.  The  shaft  is  well  timbered 
and  is  a  good  piece  of  workmanship.  At  its  bottom 
there  is  a  seven-foot  bed  of  coal  upon  which  a  gangway 
was  driven  west  in  1868,  to  a  distance  of  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  feet  from  the  shaft.  No  gang- 
way was  ever  driven  east  from  the  shaft,  and  the  foot  of 
the  shaft  itself  is  in  a  fault  which  appears  to  be  an  up- 
throw to  the  east,  of  considerable  magnitude.  Very 
little  coal  was  ever  mined  from  here,  and  what  was 
taken  out  was  burned  under  the  boilers  at  the  shaft. 
The  quantity  of  water  to  handle  here  was  pretty  large, 
and  the  shaft  was  furnished  with  a  Cornish  pump,  the 
pumping  engine  having  a  22-inch  cylinder  with  48-inch 
stroke,  and  being  geared  4  to  1.  The  hoisting  engine 
has  a  16"  x  48"  cylinder  and  is  geared  3  to  1. 

It  was  but  a  few  months  after  reaching  the  coal  at 
the  foot  of  this  shaft,  when,  the  company  which  owned 
the  property  getting  into  financial  trouble,  the  work 
was  suspended,  and  the  shaft  allowed  to  fill  with  water. 


68  COAL  MINES. 

Since  that  time  it  has  been  once  again  pumped  out, 
and  kept  clear  of  water  for  a  month  or  two,  when, 
owing  to  similar  causes,  it  was  -again  allowed  to  refill. 
And  in  this  condition  it  has  remained  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  the  water  standing  about  forty  feet  below  the 
mouth  of  the  shaft. 

It  is  believed  by  Mr.  E.  F.  Lord,  the  engineer  in  charge 
of  this  property  since  1871,  as  well  as  by  Mr.  Clarence 
King,  mining  geologist,  who  made  a  report  upon  it  in 
1874,  to  Mr.  S.  E.  Lyon  of  New  York,  that  the  seven- 
foot  bed  at  the  foot  of  the  engine  shaft  is  entirely  a 
different  and  separate  bed  from  any  of  those  upon  which 
any  mining  has  been  done  in  the  shallow  workings  near 
the  outcrop,  and  that  the  latter  beds,  denominated  by 
King  the  "Lord  Series,"  underlie  the  former,  the 
vertical  thickness  of  the  strata  between  the  upper  and 
lower  seven-foot  beds  being  supposed  to  be  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  feet. 

But  while  this  theory  is  not  a  priori  particularly  im- 
probable, it  is  yet  far  from  being  proven  to  be  true,  and 
it  is  based  upon  facts  which,  after  a  recent  careful  ex- 
amination of  the  ground  by  myself,  and  with  my  expe- 
rience of  over  nine  years  of  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  coal  mines  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  region,  I  consider  to 
be  of  very  questionable  import,  and  of  little  value. 

It  would  be  nothing  wonderful  if  this  seven-foot  bed 
at  the  foot  of  the  engine  shaft  (which  bed  consists,  by 
the  way,  of  three  distinct  benches  of  coal,  separated 
from  each  other  by  two  layers  of  clay-slate  a  few  inches 
each  in  thickness),  should  eventually  turn  out  to  be 
identical  with,  and  at  this  depth  the  only  representa- 
tive of,  the  whole  series  of  beds  which  has  been  called 


CALIFORNIA.  69 

the  "Lord  Series."  But  it  is  a  question  .upon  which 
the  paucity  and  the  doubtful  significance  of  existing 
developments  render  speculation  idle,  and  which  addi- 
tional underground  explorations  alone  can  finally  settle. 
Whatever  the  fact  may  prove  to  be,  however,  in  this 
respect,  there  can  be  no  question  in  any  case  that  the 
quantity  of  coal  in  the  Kancho  de  Los  Meganos  is  great. 
And,  though  I  have  never  seen  any  coal  in  this  property 
which  was  quite  so  hard  or  which  would  bear  handling 
and  transportation  so  well  as  the  average  of  the  Mt. 
Diablo  coal,  nevertheless,  as  it  can  be  cheaply  mined 
and  cheaply  sold,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
it  will  pay  to  open  up  and  work  this  mine,  so  soon  as 
the  property  shall  be  freed  from  legal  complications  and 
a  clean  title  shall  be  vested  in  some  party  who  has  both 
the  money  and  the  intelligence  which  it  will  certainly 
require  to  handle  it  properly. 

With  the  Eancho  de  Los  Meganos,  the  Mt.  Diablo 
coal  field  may  be  said  to  terminate,  no  explorations  to 
the  east  or  south-east  of  here  having  ever  developed 
anything  in  the  shape  of  coal  worth  mentioning  until 
we  come  to  another  fiwld,  viz., 

THE  CORRAL  HOLLOW  COAL  FIELD, 

In  the  hills  to  the  south  of  the  Livermore  Pass.  There 
is  a  general  description  of  this  coal  field,  together  with 
the  developments  which  had  been  made  here  in  the  way 
of  exploring  and  mining  for  coal  up  to  the  year  1862, 
in  the  volume  of  The  Geology  of  California,  published 
by  the  State  Geological  Survey  in  1865,  pages  34  to  38, 
to  which  the  reader  is  also  referred. 


70  COAL  MINES. 

In  the  year  1870,  I  visited  the  locality  myself,  in  the 
employment  of  the  State  Geological  Survey.  In  the 
eight  years  which  had  then  intervened  since  Mr.  Brew- 
er's last  visit,  there  had  been  considerable  work  done 
and  a  good  deal  of  money  expended  in  prospecting  and 
mining  for  coal  in  the  Corral  Hollow  canon,  the  results 
of  which  had  only  tended,  however,  to  confirm  the  ac- 
curacy of  the  opinion  expressed  on  page  36  of  The 
Geology  of  California,  that  "the  disturbances  of  the 
strata  in  this  district  were  so  extensive  that  it  was  to  be 
feared  that  these  coal  beds  would  not  be  made  avail- 
able;" while  the  quality  of  the  coal  itself  had  also  been 
proven  to  be  somewhat  inferior  to  that  of  the  Mt. 
Diablo  mines,  inasmuch  as  it  is  softer  and  more  friable, 
and  crumbles  worse  upon  exposure  to  the  atmosphere. 

At  the  old  Pacific  mine  (otherwise  called  the  "Eureka 
mine,"  and  "O'Brien's  mine,")  no  work  had  been  done 
since  1862.  Farther  down  the  canon,  though  my  notes 
of  the  trip  show  many  detailed  observations  of  the 
strike  and  dip  of  the  strata,  as  well  as  of  the  other  vis- 
ible surface  indications,  the  only  mention  it  is  worth 
while  to  make  of  them  here  is  the  fact  that  they  all  con- 
firm the  statement  that  the  strata  are  greatly  disturbed. 
All  the  lower  mines  were  already,  at  the  time  of  my 
visit,  in  August,  1870,  entirely  closed  and  abandoned; 
and  the  best  information  I  could  obtain  respecting  the 
underground  developments  in  them  was  from  Mr.  Car- 
roll, who  had  lived  here  for  some  years,  and  wras  pretty 
familiar  with  the  work  that  had  actually  been  done. 
According  to  his  statements,  the  old  shaft  of  the  "Com- 
mercial Company"  (which  is  situated  on  the  south  side 
of  the  creek,  some  half  or  three  quarters  of  a  mile  below 


CALIFORNIA.  71 

the  shaft  of  the  old  "  Coast  Eange  Company,"  described 
on  pages  37  and  38  of  The  Geology  of  California), 
was  sunk  about  two  hundred  feet,  and  a  tunnel  was 
driven  from  its  bottom  about  one  hundred  and  eighty 
feet  to  the  south.  This  shaft  was  not  in  coal,  and  the 
tunnel  from  its  foot  did  not  strike  coal.  A  short  dis- 
tance below  this  point  there  is  another  shaft  sunk  to 
a  depth  of  about  eighty  feet  by  Mr.  Header.  This  also 
was  not  on  coal,  and  no  drifting  was  done  from  it. 

The  next  opening  which  we  come  to  is  the  "lower 
shaft"  of  the  Commercial  Company.  This  shaft  is  in 
the  coal,  is  about  three  hundred  feet  deep,  and  fur- 
nished all  the  coal  which  came  from  the  Corral  Hollow 
mines  during  the  years  1869  and  1870.  But  at  the  time 
of  my  visit  the  hoisting-works  had  recently  been  burned 
down,  and  the  mine  itself,  as  well  as  its  waste  heaps, 
was  on  fire.  The  dip  in  this  mine  was  very  steep  to 
the  south. 

At  the  Almaden  mine,  a  little  further  down  the  canon, 
there  is  a  shaft  about  three  hundred  feet  deep,  and 
a  tunnel  was  driven  southerly  from  its  foot  about  seven 
hundred  feet,  but  no  coal  was  found,  except  two  or 
three  seams  of  no  value.  Carroll  thinks  there  is  coal 
here  to  the  north  of  the  shaft.  The  dip  here  is  south- 
erly. 

While  this  work  was  going  on  previous  to  1870,  the 
Western  Pacific  Railroad  Company  had  also  expended 
a  few  thousand  dollars  in  laying  down  a  track  from 
Ellis  Station  to  the  mouth  of  Corral  Hollow  canon,,  in. 
the  hope  of  getting  coal  from  these  mines  for  use  upon 
their  locomotives,  in  which  hope  they  were,  not  unnat- 
urally, disappointed. 


72  COAL  MINES. 

I  have  not  heard  of  any  further  mining  for  coal  in 
Corral  Hollow  canon  since  1870;  and  the  total  amount 
of  coal  ever  sent  to  market  from  this  locality  has  been 
very  small. 

But  outside  of  Corral  Hollow  canon,  and  yet  within 
the  limits  of  what  may  be  properly  called  the  Corral 
Hollow  coal  field,  there  has  bean  some  prospecting  and 
a  little  mining  done. 

THE  LIYERMORE  MINE. 

Within  about  a  mile  to  the  west  of  the  Pacific  mine, 
and  on  the  west  side  of  the  crest  of  the  watershed  which 
here  divides  the  waters  of  the  Livermore  valley  from 
those  of  the  San  Joaquin  valley,  there  is  situated  the 
"Livermore  Mine."  At  this  mine,  when  I  visited  it  in 
July,  1875,  they  had  sunk  a  slope  of  about  three  hun- 
dred and  eighty  feet  upon  a  bed  of  coal  whose  strike 
was  just  about  east  and  west  magnetic,  and  whose  dip, 
though  somewhat  variable,  averaged  to  the  bottom  of 
the  slope  about  40°  to  the  north. 

At  the  surface  of  the  ground,  there  was  visible  here 
only  a  little  black  dirt;  but  the  coal  began  to  come  in 
at  a  point  about  fifty  feet  below  the  mouth  of  the  slope. 
At  the  bottom  of  the  slope,  when  I  saw  it,  the  bed  was 
about  five  feet  thick,  but  contained  three  or  four  little 
streaks  of  clay,  from  half  an  inch  to  three  inches  thick. 
The  coal  itself  was  soft,  and  crumbled  on  exposure,  like 
that  of  the  mines  of  Corral  Hollow  canon.  Some  fur- 
ther work  was  done  here  in  the  latter  part  of  1875.  A 
steam  hoisting  engine  was  erected,  and  bunkers  were 
built,  and  some  drifting  was  done  underground,  but  the 
work  has  since  been  abandoned. 


CALIFORNIA.  73 

It  is  reported  that  since  1875  another  coal '  discovery 
has  been  made  at  the  so-called  "  Summit  Coal  Mine,"  a 
short  distance  to  the  north-east  from  the  Livermore 
mine,  and  that  considerable  prospecting  work  has  been 
done  there,  with  promising  results.  But  of  this  I  can- 
not speak  positively,  not  having  seen  the  ground. 

OTHER  COAL  LOCALITIES. 

Outside  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  field,  there  are  numer- 
ous localities  besides  Corral  Hollow  scattered  through- 
out the  coast  range  of  mountains  from  San  Diego  to 
Crescent  City,  and  a  number  of  localities  also  in  the 
western  foothills  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  in  California, 
where  more  or  less  coal  has  been  found.  None  of  these 
localities  have  yet  proven  themselves  to  be  of  any  finan- 
cial value  here,  and  the  great  majority  of  them  would  be 
utterly  worthless  in  any  country.  I  proceed,  however, 
to  mention  a  few,  which  either  from  their  own  intrinsic 
merit,  or  else  from  the  noise  which  has  been  made  about 
them,  are  worthy  of  special  notice. 

First.  In  the  southern  part  of  Los  Angeles  County,  at 
a  locality  about  twelve  or  thirteen  miles  easterly  from 
the  town  of  Anaheim,  in  the  mountains  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Santa  Ana  Elver,  not  over  a  mile  from  the 
river,  and  at  an  altitude  of  some  fourteen  hundred  or 
fifteen  hundred  feet  above  its  bed,  there  are  exposed  in 
the  precipitous  mountain-side  some  ten  or  twelve  thin 
seams  of  impure  coal,  distributed  through  something  like 
a  hundred  feet  in  thickness  of  shales  and  sandstones,  no 
single  coal  seam  being  over  about  one  foot  thick.  I  vis- 
ited this  locality  in  1872.  The  whole  thing  is  worthless. 


74  COAL  MINES. 

Second.  It  is  said  that  there  is  a  locality  upon  Los 
Gatos  Creek,  in  the  eastern  flank  of  the  Coast  Range,  in 
the  southern  part  of  Fresno  County,  where  there  are  ex- 
posed no  less  than  four  or  five  beds  which  show  in  their 
croppings  from  three  feet  to  four  and  one-half  feet  re- 
spectively of  a  good  quality  of  coal,  which  it  would  pay 
well  to  mine  if  it  were  within  reasonable  distance  of  a 
market.  This  locality  I  have  not  seen. 

Third.  There  is  in  the  hills  on  the  south  side  of  the 
little  valley  called  Yallecitos,  in  the  western  part  of 
Fresno  County,  and  distant  some  five  or  six  miles  in  a 
north-westerly  direction  from  the  New  Idria  Quicksilver 
mine,  a  bed  of  coal  which  strikes  N.  85°  W.,  magnetic, 
and  dips  80°  to  85°  to  the  south.  This  bed  is  certainly 
over  seven  feet  in  thickness,  as,  at  the  time  of  my  visit 
in  April,  1871,  it  had  already  been  pierced  to  that  extent 
by  a  tunnel  which  had  not  yet  gone  through  it.  This 
tunnel  struck  the  bed  at  a  depth  only  about  forty  feet 
below  the  surface  of  the  ground.  So  far  as  exposed 
at  that  time,  the  coal  was  pretty  uniform  in  quality 
throughout,  and  appeared  but  little  contaminated  with 
earthy  matter.  It  however  contained  considerable  gyp- 
sum in  thin  scales  filling  its  seams,  and  it  was  soft  and 
friable.  But  its  quality  was  good  enough,  on  the  whole, 
to  warrant  a  belief  that  it  might,  with  proper  arrange- 
ments, be  used  to  some  extent  with  advantage  in  the 
reduction  of  quicksilver  ores  at  the  New  Idria  mine, 
where  wood  is  scarce  and  expensive,  though  whether 
since  then  it  has  actually  been  so  utilized,  I  am  not 
informed. 

Fourth.  On  the  Middle  Fork  of  the  -Eel  Kiver,  about 
seven  or  eight  miles  south  of  the  village  of  Bound  Yal- 


CALIFORNIA.  75 

ley,  in  Mendocino  county,  and  in  the  north-east  corner 
of  section  11  of  township  21  north,  range  13  west,  Mt. 
Diablo  meridain,  there  is  a  bed  of  coal  exposed,  cross- 
ing the  channel  of  the  river  in  a  direction  N.  45°  W. 
to  N.  50°  W.  magnetic,  and  dipping  from  20°  to  30° 
north-east. 

This  bed  is  from  fourteen  to  fifteen  feet  thick,  and  is 
all  good  coal  with  the  exception  of  a  single  streak  of 
shale  in  the  middle  of  it,  about  five  or  six  inches  in 
thickness.  The  coal  is  immediately  overlaid  and  under- 
laid by  heavy  beds  of  very  fragile  shales. 

The  shales  above  the  coal  are  not  far  from  seventy- 
five  feet  thick,  and  are  overlaid  by  very  hard  and  highly 
metamorphic  rocks,  containing  large  quantities  of  jas- 
per and  other  silicious  matter. 

The  shales  beneath  the  coal  are  about  twenty  feet 
thick,  and  are  underlaid  by  a  bed  of  unaltered  sand- 
stone some  ten  or  twelve  thick,  which  again  rests  upon 
the  same  hard,  metamorphic  rocks  which  overlie  the 
shales  above.  The  whole  thickness,  coal  and  all,  there- 
fore, of  the  belt  of  unaltered  strata  which  includes  this 
coal  bed,  is  at  this  locality  only  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty -five  feet. 

The  quality  of  the  coal  itself  is  a  little  better  than 
that  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines.  In  fact,  it  is  the  best 
coal  which  I  have  seen  from  anywhere  in  California; 
while  at  the  same  time  this  is  the  thickest  bed  of  a 
marketable  quality  of  coal  that  is  yet  known  to  exist 
within  the  state.  Two  causes,  however,  combine  to 
render  it  improbable  that  it  will  ever  furnish  coal  for 
the  San  Francisco  market.  In  the  first  place,  there  is 
plenty  of  evidence  close  at  hand  that  the  rocks  in  that 
neighborhood  have  been  greatly  disturbed,  and  it  is 


76  COAL  MINES. 

very  uncertain  how  far  the  bed  could  be  followed  with- 
out being  found  crushed  and  broken  up  by  faults;  while 
at  the  same  time  extensive  metamorphism  of  the  rocks 
has  been  peculiarly  localized  and  capriciously  distrib- 
uted throughout  this  region,  and  very  irregular  patches 
and  belts  of  highly  metamorphosed  rocks  alternate  in 
all  directions  with  no  less  irregular  belts  and  patches 
which  seem  to  have  almost  entirely  escaped  the  meta- 
morphic  action.  And,  in  the  second  place,  the  locality 
is  in  the  heart  of  the  Coast  Range  of  mountains,  and  in 
order  to  reach  it,  it  would  be  necessary  to  construct  a 
railroad  for  a  long  distance  through  a  very  rough  region, 
which  would  render  the  cost  of  transportation  so  great 
that  coal  can  be  laid  down  in  San  Francisco  from  Wash- 
ington territory  or  Vancouver's  Island  for  less  cost  per 
ton  than  from  here.  There  are  said  to  be  several  other 
localities  to  the  west  and  south-west  from  Round  Valley 
where  some  croppings  of  coal  have  been  found,  but 
none  of  these  are  of  any  special  interest. 

Fifth.  In  the  eastern  part  of  Shasta  County,  there  is 
among  the  western  foothills  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  a  region 
of  considerable  extent,  including  portions  of  several 
townships,  where  the  volcanic  materials  which  cap  the 
mountain  spurs  and  ridges  are  generally  underlaid  by 
a  body  of  coal-bearing  strata  of  recent  origin.  These 
strata  consist  of  soft  and  unaltered  shales  and  sand- 
stones, and  they  are  spread  out  unconformably  over  the 
upturned  edges  of  the  metamorphic  gold-bearing  slates 
which  form  so  large  a  part  of  the  mass  of  the  Sierra. 
Their  general  position  is  not  far  from  horizontal,  though 
at  different  points  they  dip  gently  in  various  directions, 
the  angle  of  dip  rarely,  if  ever,  exceeding  6°  or  8°.  The 
aggregate  thickness  of  these  strata  is  probably  not  over 


CALIFORNIA.  77 

one  or  two  hundred  feet;  and  they  belong'  to  that  geo- 
logical period  which  immediately  preceded  the  com- 
mencement of  volcanic  activity  in  that  portion  of  the 
range. 

At  a  point  in  the  north-west  quarter  of  section  20, 
township  33  north,  range  1  west,  Mt.  Diablo  meridian, 
there  was  in  September,  1874,  an  open  cut  in  a  hill 
side,  thirty -five  feet  long,  beyond  which  a  tunnel  had 
been  driven  fifteen  feet  underground;  and  in  this  tun- 
nel there  was  exposed  a  coal-bed  whose  total  thickness 
was  twelve  feet.  This  thickness  was  made  up  as  fol- 
lows, beginning  at  the  top : 

Feet.  Inches. 

Coal,  slaty  and  worthless 1  6 

Slate 0  6 

Coal.. 0  7 

Slate 0  5 

Coal 0  11 

Slate 0  3 

Coal 1  2 

Slate 0  3 

Coal 0  1 

Slate .  .  110 


Coal 0  5 

Slate 0  4 

Coal 0  4 

Slate 0  2 

Coal 1  10 

Slate 0  4 

Coal 0  4 

Slate 0  3 

Coal 0  6 

Total ,  12  0 


78  COAL  MINES. 

What  is  here  designated  as  "coal,"  however,  was  it- 
self more  or  less  impure,  being  often  traversed  by  still 
thinner  sheets  of  clay  and  dirt,  whose  thickness  ranged 
from  that  of  a  sheet  of  paper  up  to  half  an  inch,  or  so. 
It  was  also  soft  and  friable,  and  disintegrated  rapidly 
on  exposure  to  the  air.  This  to  be  sure  was  very  close 
to  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

When  I  again  visited  the  same  locality,  in  April,  1876, 
this  tunnel  had  been  driven  some  thirty  feet  further 
underground,  and  then  allowed  to  cave,  and  the  place 
was  inaccessible.  I  was  told  by  Mr.  Kincaid,  who 
did  the  work,  that  at  the  face  where  he  last  stopped 
the  coal  was  somewhat  harder,  and  contained  less  slate 
than  where  I  saw  it  in  1874.  But  heavy  as  this  bed  is, 
its  quality  at  the  best,  so  far  as  yet  explored,  is  such 
that  unless  it  improves  very  materially  on  driving  fur- 
ther into  the  hill,  it  is  not  likely  to  pay  to  mine. 

In  the  near  vicinity  of  this  point,  also,  there  has  been 
considerable  other  prospecting  work  done,  and  one  tun- 
nel has  been  driven  some  four  or  five  hundred  feet  in 
length.  But  none  of  this  work  has  developed  so  much 
coal  as  the  open  cut  and  tunnel  just  described. 

I  also  saw  more  or  less  of  coal  croppings  at  various 
other  localities  scattered  about  through  this  region. 
For  example,  on  section  3,  section  7,  section  8,  and  sec- 
tion 21  of  this  same  township,  also  on  section  12,  town- 
ship 33  north,  range  2  west,  and  also  at  a  point  which 
is  probably  in  section  9,  township  34  north,  range  1 
west.  Croppings  are  said  to  be  exposed  also  in  section 
27  and  section  28  of  township  33  north,  range  1  west. 
But  very  little  work  has  been  done,  however,  at  any  of 
these  localities,  and  no  coal  has  yet  been  found  which 
it  would  pay  to  mine. 


CALIFORNIA.  79 

Sixth.  In  lone  Yalley,  at  the  western  edge  of  the  foot- 
hills of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  in  Amador  County,  there  is 
a  coal-bed,  which  has  attracted  some  attention,  at  a  lo- 
cality which  I  visited  incidentally  in  November,  1871, 
while  more  especially  engaged  in  studying  for  the  State 
Geological  Survey  the  ancient  auriferous  gravels,  which 
are  so  widely  distributed  over  the  western  flanks  of  the 
Sierra. 

This  coal  is  also  of  very  recent  origin;  quite  proba- 
bly, indeed,  not  older  than  some  of  the  auriferous  grav- 
els themselves.  The  bed  lies  nearly  horizontal,  and 
ranges  at  different  points  from  five  or  six  to  twelve  or 
fifteen  feet  in  thickness.  It  is  overlaid  and  underlaid 
by  a  very  soft  clay-rock,  and  its  depth  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  the  ground  is  small,  being  sometimes  not  more 
than  thirty  or  forty  feet.  The  material  itself  is  strictly 
a  lignite,  still  showing  a  good  deal  of  the  woody  tex- 
ture. It  is  not  black  nor  lustrous,  but  of  a  dull  earthy 
brown  color,  very  soft  and  friable,  and  makes  a  large 
quantity  of  ash.  Nevertheless,  it  burns  very  freely  with 
a  bright  flame,  and  the  ashes  do  not  form  any  trouble- 
some clinker.  It  has  been  employed  for  years  as  fuel 
for  a  flouring-mill  at  lone  City,  the  distance  to  haul  it 
being  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile.  At  the  time  of 
my  visit,  this  mill,  driven  by  a  steam  engine  of  14"  cyl- 
inder and  36"  stroke,  was  using  no  other  fuel,  and  was 
consuming  of  this,  as  Mr.  Hall,  the  proprietor,  informed 
me,  about  three  tons  per  day,  costing  less  than  a  dollar 
and  a  half  per  ton  at  the  mill.  This  was  certainly  very 
cheap  fuel;  and  the  lone  Valley  coal  will  be  likely  to 
continue  for  many  years  to  supply  a  certain  moderate 
local  demand  for  various  purposes;  but  it  will  not  bear 


80  GOAL  MINES. 

transportation  to  any  great  distance,  and  it  is  not  likely 
to  ever  compete  with  other  coals  in  the  general  market. 
Since  the  beginning  of  1876,  a  new  mine  has  been 
opened  here,  and  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  talk 
about  it;  but  whether  the  quality  of  its  coal  is  in  reality 
any  better  or  poorer  than  was  obtained  from  the  earlier 
workings  I  do  not  know,  not  having  yet  seen  the  mine 
myself. 

Seventh.  At  the  village  of  Lincoln  in  the  Sacramento 
valley,  in  the  south-western  part  of  Placer  county,  there 
is  also  a  coal  deposit,  of  which  great  expectations  have 
from  time  to  time  been  entertained.  I  have  never  ex- 
amined this  deposit  and  do  not  know  the  extent  of  the 
work  which  has  been  done.  But  I  have  seen  some  of 
the  coal  which  it  has  furnished  and  such  of  it  as  I  have 
seen  was  decidedly  inferior  in  quality  even  to  the  lone 
Valley  coal;  so  poor,  in  fact,  as  to  be  practically  worth- 
less. 

Eighth.  At  American  Canon,  in  the  south-western 
part  of  Solano  County,  there  are,  for  some  distance  in  the 
bluff  along  the  right  bank  of  the  canon,  heavy  but  irreg- 
ular croppings  of  black  carbonaceous  shale,  containing 
streaks  from  one  inch  to  eight  or  ten  inches  in  thickness 
of  coal.  Most  of  these  croppings,  however,  are  not  in 
place,  as  there  has  been  more  or  less  land-sliding  nearly 
all  the  way  along  the  steep  face  of  the  bluff. 

The  attempt  has  been  made  once  or  twice  to  organize 
a  company  to  mine  here  for  coal.  But  there  has  never 
vet  been  sufficient  work  done  here  to  prove  what  lies 
in  the  solid  hill  back  of  the  croppings.  The  locality 
would  also  be  rather  an  expensive  one  to  prospect  satis- 
factorily, and  the  surface  indications  are  not  on  the 


CALIFORNIA.  81 

\ 

whole  particularly  promising.  With  reference,  how- 
ever, to  transportation  and  proximity  to  market,  the 
situation  is  a  very  favorable  one  if  ever  a  good  mine  be 
found  here. 

Ninth.  There  have  been  occasional  paragraphs  in  the 
newspapers,  within  the  last  year  or  two,  with  reference 
to  the  discovery  of  what  has  been  asserted  to  be  a 
heavy  bed  of  a  superior  quality  of  coal  in  the  range  of 
hills  next  east  of  the  Santa  Kosa  Valley  in  Sonoma 
County.  But  I  am  not  aware  that  this  discovery  has 
yet  proven  itself  to  be  of  any  value. 

Tenth.  In  addition  to  all  the  foregoing,  there  have 
been  numberless  "coal  discoveries"  reported  in  the 
newspapers  from  time  to  time,  in  almost  every  corner 
of  the  State;  but  more  especially  in  the  Coast  Range  of 
mountains,  and  more  particularly  still  in  the  counties 
of  Santa  Cruz  and  Monterey,  and  in  the  Contra  Costa 
hills  which  stretch  south-easterly  from  Carquinez  straits 
through  Contra  Costa  and  Alameda  counties,  and  in  the 
foothills  which  skirt  the  southern  and  western  flanks  of 
Mt.  Diablo  itself.  And  in  very  many,  probably  indeed 
in  nearly  all  of  these  numerous  localities,  a  little  coal 
of  some  sort  has  actually  been  found.  But  none  of 
them  all  have  yet  proven  to  be  of  any  practical  value, 
and  the  statement  still  remains  true  to-day,  as  it  has 
done  in  the  past,  that  the  only  locality  in  California 
where  coal  has  ever  yet  been  mined  with  profit  to  any 
noteworthy  extent,  is  at  the  old  Mt.  Diablo  mines. 

But  it  is  furthermore  true  to-day,  of  the  Mt.  Diablo 

mines  themselves,  that  all  of  them  which   have  been 

profitable  in  the  past  have  already  seen  their  best  days 

and  are  now  rapidly  declining;  while  outside  of  these 

6 


82  COAL  MINES. 

old  mines  the  most  promising  region  yet  known  in  the 
State  is  the  eastern  and  yet  unworked  part  of  the  Mt. 
Diablo  coal  field,  in  which  the  most  promising  develop- 
ments yet  made  are  at  the  Empire  mine  and  at  the 
Rancho  de  los  Meganos. 


CHAPTEE  II. 
OREGON. 

THE  Coos  BAY  MINES. 

The  only  coal  mines  hitherto  worked  with  profit  in 
Oregon  are  located  at  Coos  Bay,  on  the  western  coast  of 
the  State,  about  one  hundred  miles  north  of  the  Cali- 
fornia boundary,  and  some  forty  miles  to  the  north  of 
Cape  Blanco. 

The  full  extent  of  the  Coos  Bay  coal  field  is  not  yet 
definitely  known,  and  it  will  probably  be  many  years 
before  it  will  become  so.  The  wild  nature  of  the  coun- 
try, which  is  everywhere  covered  with  dense  and  heavy 
forests,  renders  exploration  extremely  slow,  laborious 
and  expensive;  while  the  distance  from  market,  com- 
bined with  the  difficulties  of  navigation  make  it  impos- 
sible to  mine  coal  here  with  profit,  except  at  a  few 
points,  where  it  is  found  of  good  quality,  favorably  sit- 
uated for  cheap  mining,  and  very  close  to  navigable 
water. 

It  is  already  known,  however,  that  this  coal  field  cov- 
ers at  least  several  hundred  square  miles  of  territory, 
stretching  from  the  mouth  of  the  Umpqua  river  on  the 
north  to  points  beyond  the  Coquille  river  on  the  south, 
and  extending  back  from  the  coast  to  distances  of  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  miles  inland. 


84  COAL  MINES. 

The  general  character  of  the  surface  of  the  country 
thus  designated  is  that  of  a  hilly  region,  carved  into  a 
perfect  labyrinth  of  steep  and  narrow  gulches,  and  in 
the  vicinity  of  Coos  Bay,  pierced  in  every  direction  by 
numerous  "sloughs,"  or  long  narrow  and  crooked  in- 
lets, which  though  usually  not  very  deep,  often  allow 
the  tide-water  to  set  back  in  them  many  miles.  The 
lower  portions  of  the  Umpqua  and  the  Coquille  rivers 
themselves  also  assume  the  character  of  these  so-called 
"sloughs,"  and  the  tide  ebbs  and  flows  in  them  for  a 
considerable  distance  back  from  the  coast. 

Over  the  greater  portion  of  this  region  the  hills  rarely 
rise  to  altitudes  of  more  than  five  or  six  hundred 
feet  above  tide-water;  but  the  banks  of  the  sloughs 
are  generally  abrupt  and  steep,  and  the  gulches  which 
cut  the  hills  in  every  direction  are  so  numerous  as  well 
as  deep  and  steep,  that  with  the  heavy  timber  and  fre- 
quently the  dense  underbrush  besides,  the  country  is  a 
very  hard  one  to  prospect,  or  to  travel  through. 

As  a  general  rule,  along  this  portion  of  the  coast, 
each  river  or  inlet  has  in  front  of  it  a  bar  of  sand,  upon 
which  the  water  is  not  so  deep  as  it  is  in  the  sloughs 
inside.  These  bars,  moreover,  are  shifting,  and  the 
deepest  channels  over  them  vary  more  or  less  in  posi- 
tion as  well  as  in  depth,  with  every  heavy  storm.  The 
depth  at  low  water  on  the  bar  in  front  of  Coos  Bay  va- 
ries, in  different  seasons,  from  nine  to  thirteen  or  four- 
teen feet;  and  it  is  a  most  serious  disadvantage  to  the 
Coos  Bay  coal  mines  that  t]iis  depth  is  so  small  as  not 
to  permit  the  general  use  of  vessels  for  transporting  the 
coal,  which  will  carry  more  than  from  three  hundred  to 
four  hundred  tons  at  a  cargo.  Moreover,  in  the  winter 


OREGON.  85 

the  sea  is  frequently  so  rough  that  it  is  unsafe  for  ves- 
sels oj:  any  kind  to  attempt  to  cross  the  bar;  and  it  has 
happened  more  than  once  that  vessels  laden  with  coal 
and  lumber  have  been  land-locked  in  Coos  Bay,  and 
unable  to  get  out  for  over  a  month  at  a  time. 

Coos  Bay  itself  is  roughly  crescent  shaped,  convex 
towards  the  north.  From  the  head  of  the  bay  proper, 
which  is  about  at  the  village  of  Marshfield,  Isthmus 
Slough  continues  navigable  some  six  or  eight  miles  far- 
ther south  for  vessels  as  large  as  can  ordinarily  cross 
the  bar.  There  is  thus  included  between  the  upper  and 
lower  portions  of  the  bay,  and  between  Isthmus  Slough 
and  the  ocean  coast  a  peninsula,  which  in  its  southern 
portion  is  eight  or  nine  miles  wide.  Empire  City,  on 
the  lower  portion  of  Coos  Bay,  is  on  the  north-west 
side  of  this  peninsula;  the  village  of  North  Bend  is  at 
its  extreme  northern  point;  while  Marshfield  is  on  its 
eastern  side,  and,  as  already  stated,  at  about  the  head 
of  the  bay  itself. 

There  is  a  saw-mill  at  Empire  City,  another  at  North 
Bend,  and  a  third  at  Marshfield.  The  united  capacity 
of  these  three  mills  amounts  to  not  far  from  fifty  thou- 
sand feet  of  lumber  per  day.  There  has  been  some 
shipbuilding  done  here;  and  North  Bend  has  turned 
out  one  or  two  remarkably  fast  sailers.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  the  so-called  Port  Orford  cedar,  viz.,  the 
white  cedar  of  Oregon,  which  reaches  the  San  Francisco 
market,  comes  from  the  Coos  Bay  mills.  All  three  of 
the  villages  named  above  are  in  township  25  south, 
range  13  west,  Willamette  meridian.  The  paying  coal 
mines  of  Coos  Bay  are  all  in  township  26  south,  range 
13  west.  There  are  only  two  mines  which  have  been 


86  COAL  MINES. 

profitably  worked  in  the  past,  viz.,  the  Eastport  mine 
and  the  Newport  mine,  and  there  is  at  the  present  time 
but  one  more  which  gives  any  reasonable  promise  of 
profit  in  the  future. 

THE  EASTPORT  MINE. 

At  a  point  on  the  left  bank  of  Isthmus  Slough  near 
its  mouth  and  a  mile  or  so  above  Marshfield  is  the 
mouth  of  "Coal-Bank  Slough."  From  here  up  the 
latter  slough,  which  is  small  and  crooked  and  navigable 
only  at  high  water,  it  is  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile  tov 
the  point  of  shipment  of  the  coal  from  the  Eastport 
mine.  This  mine  is  situated  in  the  north-east  quarter 
of  section  4  of  township  26  south,  range  13  west,  though 
it  is  opened  by  a  tunnel  whose  mouth  is  in  the  north- 
west corner  of  section  3;  while  its  most  northerly  under- 
ground workings  probably  also  extend  somewhat  beyond 
the  township  line  on  the  north  into  the  south-east  quar- 
ter of  section  33  in  the  adjoining  township.  The  height 
of  the  mouth  of  the  mine  above  tide  water  is  stated  to 
be  one  hundred  and  sixty  or  one  hundred  and  seventy 
feet,  and  the  length  of  the  railroad  from  there  to  the 
landing  on  Coal-Bank  Slough  is  about  seven-eighths  of 
a  mile.  This  railroad  is  a  wooden  tramway  of  about 
four  feet  gauge  furnished  with  a  strap  iron  rail.  The 
cars  are  of  wood,  with  trap  door  discharges  at  the  bot- 
tom, and  hold  about  two  and  a  half  tons  each.  Each 
empty  car  is  hauled  separately  from  the  landing  up  to 
the  mine  by  a  horse  or  mule.  The  loaded  cars  run 
down  to  the  landing  by  their  own  gravity,  and  four  of 
them  being  coupled  together  constitute  a  train,  the 
brakes  of  which  are  managed  by  one  man. 


OREGON.  87 

The  coal  bed  here  strikes  about  true- north  and  south, 
and  throughout  the  upper  portions  of  the  mine  has  an 
average  dip  of  about  8°  to  the  west.  The  aggregate 
thickness  of  the  coal  mined  ranges  from  four  to  five 
feet,  averaging  about  four  feet  and  a  half,  in  two  benches 
of  nearly  equal  thickness  with  a  stratum  of  soft  clay- 
slate  between  them  whose  average  thickness  is  about 
six  inches,  though  it  ranges  in  different  parts  of  the 
mine  from  four  to  ten.  Above  the  upper  one  of  these 
two  benches  comes  a  stratum  of  clay-slate,  generally 
about  one  foot  in  thickness,  and  immediately  over  this 
again  about  one  foot  of  coal.  But  this  so-called  "top 
coal "  is  not  generally  taken  down,  for  the  reason  that 
the  material  overlying  it  is  a  soft  and  weak  clay-rock 
which  would  not  form  so  good  a  roof  for  the  mine  as 
the  slate  beneath  the  top  coal  does,  while  at  the  same 
time  that  coal,  though  generally  of  good  quality,  is  not 
thick  enough  to  pay  for  handling  so  much  rock  as  would 
be  necessary  in  order  to  obtain  it. 

This  mine  is  opened  by  a  tunnel  driven  westerly  from 
a  point  below  the  outcrop  of  the  bed  a  distance  of  some 
seven  hundred  feet  to  where  it  strikes  the  coal.  From 
this  point  a  gangway  has  been  driven  a  considerable 
distance  both  north  and  south,  and  all  the  available 
coal  above  its  level  taken  out.  From  a  point  in  this 
gangway  some  five  or  six  hundred  feet  south  of  the  tun- 
nel a  slope  has  been  sunk  following  the  dip  of  the  bed 
to  the  west  a  distance  of  about  nine  hundred  feet.  From 
this  slope  gangways  have  been  driven  north  and  south 
at  various  points,  some  of  them  to  distances  of  two  thou- 
sand feet  or  more,  and  the  upper  lifts  thus  obtained 
are  also  by  this  time  pretty  well  exhausted.  At  the 


88  COAL  MINES. 

time  of  my  last  visit  to  this  mine,  in  May,  1876,  the 
gangway  from  the  foot,  or  extreme  western  end  of  this 
slope,  had  extended  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
north  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  south  from  the 
slope.  In  going  down  this  slope  the  dip  of  the  bed  it- 
self gradually  decreases  from  about  8°  at  its  head  until 
within  about  one  hundred  feet  of  its  foot  it  vanishes 
altogether,  and  for  the  remaining  distance  the  coal  lies 
just  about  level.  At  the  same  time,  however,  the  bed 
becomes  somewhat  more  irregular  and  shows  numerous 
small  rolls  with  occasional  faults,  which  make  it  more 
expensive  to  mine,  while  the  coal  itself  is  not  quite  so 
hard  and  good  as  it  was  in  the  upper  levels  of  the  mine. 

THE  NEWPORT  MINE. 

The  Newport  Mine  is  in  the  northern  part  of  section 
9  of  township  26  south,  range  13  west,  and  its  mouth  is 
only  about  ninety  feet  above  tide  water.  Its  point  of 
shipment  is  also  on  Coal  Bank  slough,  at  some  little  dis- 
tance above  that  of  the  Eastport  mine.  The  railroad 
from  the  mine  to  the  landing  is  a  little  less  than  two 
miles  in  length,  laid  with  the  strap  rail,  with  a  gauge 
of  three  feet  two  inches,  and  for  a  portion  of  the  dis- 
tance it  has  an  up  grade  for  the  load  of  about  one  hun- 
dred feet  to  the  mile  in  order  to  gain  sufficient  height 
at  the  landing  for  shoots  to  load  the  vessels.  It  is  fur- 
nished also  with  a  little  four-wheeled  locomotive,  only 
two  of  the  wheels  being  drivers,  which  is  said  to  weigh 
seven  tons  and  to  have  cost  about  four  thousand  dollars. 
This  engine  hauls  four  cars  at  a  time,  containing  ten 
tons  of  coal,  from  the  mine  to  the  landing. 


OREGON.  89 

The  Newport  Mine  is  opened  by  a  tunnel  or  gangway, 
which  starts  in  the  croppings  of  the  bed  011  the  south 
side  of  a  ravine  and  runs  directly  in  the  coal  itself  for 
a  distance  of  over  two  thousand  feet  to  the  south,  en- 
tirely through  the  spur  of  the  hills  in  which  the  mine  is 
located  and  out  to  daylight  on  the  other  side.  No  coal 
has  }-et  been  mined  here  below  the  level  of  this  gang- 
way. The  maximum  height  of  the  lift  above  it  in  the 
middle  of  the  spur  was  probably  over  fifteen  hundred 
feet.  But  the  greater  portion  of  this  is  now  worked 
out,  and  in  May,  1876,  the  foreman  of  the  mine  in- 
formed me  that  the  quantity  of  available  coal  then  re- 
maining above  this  gangway  would  not  exceed  a  two 
years'  supply  at  the  rate  of  fifty  tons  per  day.  Another 
gangway  can  be  driven  here,  however,  at  a  lower  level 
which  will  give  an  additional  lift  of  two  or  three  hun- 
dred feet  below  the  present  one  and  thus  furnish  several 
years'  further  supply  of  coal  before  it  will  be  necessary 
to  do  any  pumping  or  hoisting. 

The  bed  which  is  here  worked  is  unquestionably  the 
same  as  that  in  the  Eastport  mine,  and  has  about  the 
same  thickness  and  the  same  general  characteristics. 
Its  strike  here  also  is  north  and  south,  and  its  average 
dip  in  the  Newport  Mine  about  9°  to  the  west. 

There  are  very  few  faults  or  disturbances  of  any 
sort  so  far  as  the  works  have  yet  extended  in  either 
of  these  mines,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  gradual 
diminution  of  the  dip  already  noticed  in  the  lower  por- 
tion of  the  Eastport  mine.  But  there  is  evidence  that 
within  half  a  mile,  or  less,  to  the  west  of  the  Newport 
mine  there  is  a  disturbance  of  considerable  magnitude. 
For  the  eastern  part  of  section  8  and  the  western 


90  COAL  MINES. 

part  of  section  9  are  occupied  by  a  liigli  ridge,  known 
as  Yokam  Hill,  in  tlie  sides  of  wliicli  may  be  seen  at 
various  points  the  outcrops  of  a  bed  of  coal,  which  is 
in  all  probability  identical  with  the  one  that  is  worked 
in  the  mines,  but  which  here  lies  at  an  altitude  above 
tide-water,  which  at  one  point  is  over  three  hundred 
feet  higher  than  the  mouth  of  the  Newport  mine.  And 
in  Yokam  Hill,  also,  the  bed,  though  elevated  more 
than  three  hundred  feet  above  the  horizon  which  it  oc- 
cupies in  the  Newport  mine,  still  dips  gently  to  the 
west.  There  is,  therefore,  in  all  probability,  either  a 
single  fault  or  a  series  of  faults  of  considerable  magni- 
tude in  the  strata  between  Yokam  Hill  arid  the  New- 
port mine. 

There  are  also  scattered  here  and  there  over  other 
portions  of  the  peninsula  indications  of  a  probability 
that  faults  and  dislocations  are  by  no  means  uncommon, 
although  very  little  has  yet  been  seen  of  them  in  the 
workings  of  the  mines  themselves. 

NEW  MINE. 

As  already  stated,  the  Eastport  and  the  Newport 
mines  are  the  only  ones  which  have  hitherto  been  suc- 
cessfully worked  at  Coos  Bay.  But  at  the  present  time, 
March,  1877,  Mr.  B.  B.  Jones  is  engaged  in  building  a 
railroad,  and  opening  a  new  mine  at  a  locality  on  the 
left  bank  of  Isthmus  Slouch,  some  five  or  six  miles 
above  Marshfield,  and  opposite  the  little  village  of 
Coos  City,  which  stands  on  the  right  bank  at  the  ter- 
minus of  the  wagon  road  coming  from  Hoseburg  over 
the  coast  range  of  mountains;  and  this  mine  bids  fair 


OREGON.  91 

to  become  of  greater  value  hereafter  than  either  the 
Eastport  or  the  Newport.  It  has  already  been  proven 
by  a  tunnel  driven  some  five  hundred  or  six  hundred 
feet  upon  a  coal-bed  in  the  direction  of  about  north  18° 
east  true  course,  from  a  point  in  the  bed  of  a  gulch 
in  the  north-east  corner  of  the  south-east  quarter  of 
section  22  of  township  26,  south  range -13  west. 

The  mouth  of  this  tunnel  is  one  hundred  and  four 
feet  above  the  level  of  low  water  in  Isthmus  Slough, 
thus  giving  plenty  of  height  for  bunkers,  dumps,  etc., 
while  a  railroad  of  only  about  half  a  mile  in  length,  which 
can  be  cheaply  built,  will  convey  the  coal  from  the  bunk- 
ers at  the  mine  to  deep  water  on  the  slough. 

At  the  point  where  the  tunnel  was  commenced,  there 
was  no  visible  outcrop  whatever  of  the  coal  at  the  sur- 
face of  the  ground;  but  a  few  feet  beneath  the  surface 
a  dark-colored  streak  began  to  show  itself,  which  grew 
rapidly  thicker  and  purer  until  within  about  one  hundred 
feet  from  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel  it  had  developed  into 
a  bed  of  good  coal  about  four  feet  thick.  Beyond  that 
point,  so  far  as  the  tunnel  has  yet  extended,  this  bed  will 
furnish  from  four  to  four  and  one-half  feet  of  clean,  hard 
coal,  of  a  quality  as  good  as  the  best  hitherto  furnished 
by  the  Coos  Bay  mines.  The  strike  of  the  bed  is  about 
north  18°  east  true  course,  and  its  dip  is  about  8J°  to 
the  east.  It  has  in  the  middle  of  it  a  streak  an  inch  or 
two  in  thickness  of  a  soft  clay  "mining;"  but  the  re- 
mainder of  the  bed  is  good,  clean  coal,  which  separates 
easily  from  the  roof  and  floor;  and  as,  furthermore, 
both  roof  and  floor  consist  of  good,  solid  sandstone, 
the  coal  can  be  mined  from  this  bed  for  a  little  less 
cost  than  it  can  at  either  of  the  other  mines,  where  the 


92  GOAL  MINES. 

roof  is  not  so  good.  So  far  as  can  be  judged  from  sur- 
face indications,  also,  there  is  every  probability  that 
this  mine  will  prove  an  extensive  one,  and  that  the 
quantity  of  coal  which  can  be  cheaply  extracted  from  it 
will  be  large.  It  is  pleasing  to  be  able  to  add  that  the 
well  known  experience  and  ability  of  Mr.  Jones  give 
good  assurance  that  this  property  will  be  prudently 
managed,  and  that  in  so  far  as  coal  mining  at  Coos  Bay 
can  be  made  profitable  hereafter,  he  may  be  expected 
to  make  this  mine  pay. 

MISTAKES  AND  FAILURES. 

It  is  not  so  pleasant,  however,  to  contemplate  the 
wasteful  expenditure  of  money  which  has  been  made 
within  the  last  few  years  at  other  localities  about  Coos 
Bay  by  thoroughly  incompetent,  if  not  in  some  cases 
dishonest,  parties  in  searching  and  mining  for  coal.  It 
probably  would  not  exceed  the  truth  to  assert  that  since 
the  year  1870  there  has  been  expended  in  this  way,  in 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  Coos  Bay,  an  aggregate  sum 
of  not  less  than  half  a  million  of  dollars,  every  dollar 
of  which  is  a  total  loss,  and  at  least  nine-tenths  of  which 
would  certainly  have  been  saved  if  the  advice  of  a  com- 
petent engineer  had  been  sought  and  followed. 

As  it  has  been  a  time-honored  practice  among  the 
gold  and  silver  bearing  quartz  veins  of  California  and 
elsewhere,  to  erect  a  costly  mill,  with  all  its  apparatus 
complete  for  crushing,  amalgamating,  etc.,  before  the 
mine  was  sufficiently  developed  to  prove  whether  there 
was  anything  in  it  worth  crushing  or  not,  so  the  usual 
practice  in  these  experiments  at  Coos  Bay  has  been  to 


OREGON.  93 

build  railroads,  bunkers  and  wharves  before  any  coal 
had  been  found  that  was  worth  mining;  and  in  more 
instances  than  one  under  circumstances  where  there 
never  was  any  reasonable  probability  that  any  coal 
would  be  found  which  it  would  pay  to  mine. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  briefly  describe  two  or  three 
of  these  Quixotic  undertakings.  The  first  one,  and 
perhaps  the  least  Quixotic  of  all  those  which  have  in- 
volved heavy  expenditure,  w^as  in  progress  at  the  time 
of  my  first  visit  to  Coos  Bay,  in  August,  1872,  and  was 
known  as  "Hardy's  Mine." 

This  mine  was  located  on  the  north-east  side  of  the 
bay,  nearly  opposite  the  village  of  North  Bend,  and  on 
the  peninsula  between  Haynes's  Slough  and  Jordan's 
Slough.  Its  wharf  wras  built  at  Jordan's  Point.  The  mine 
was  opened  by  a  tunnel  whose  mouth  was  on  the  north- 
east quarter  of  the  south-Avest  quarter  of  section  1,  of 
township  25  south,  range  13  west,  and  which  ran  in  a  di- 
rection north  33°  east  magnetic,  about  eight  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  to  where  it  struck  the  coal-bed,  from  which 
point  a  gangway  had  been  driven  at  the  time  of  my  visit 
(August,  1872),  about  four  hundred  feet  to  the  north. 
So  far  as  the  gangway  then  extended,  the  strike  of  the 
bed  was  about  true  north,  and  its  dip  16°  or  18°  to  the 
west.  This  gangway  lies  beneath  the  western  slope  of 
a  ridge  which  runs  nearly  north  and  south  across  the 
peninsula  in  question,  and  whose  crest  is  said  to  rise 
something  over  four  hundred  feet  above  low  water. 
Along  the  eastern  slope  of  the  ridge  the  coal  crops  out 
at  two  or  three  points  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  feet 
below  its  crest,  and  in  these  croppings  the  coal  appeared 
to  be  of  fair  quality.  But  in  the  gangway  below,  it  was 


94  COAL  MINES. 

found  to  be  soft  and  to  crumble  very  badly  on  exposure 
to  the  weather.  The  bed  itself  is,  in  all  probability, 
identical  with  the  one  in  the  Eastport  and  Newport 
mines,  as  it  consists  of  the  same  three  layers  of  coal 
with  streaks  of  clay-rock  between  them,  arranged  in  the 
same  order,  and  preserving  very  nearly  the  same  thick- 
ness, both  relatively  and  absolutely,  as  at  those  mines. 
But  besides  the  fact  that  the  coal  was  soft  and  air- 
slacked  very  badly,  the  bed  itself,  though  not  troubled 
so  far  as  the  gangway  then  extended  with  faults  of  any 
noticeable  magnitude,  was,  nevertheless,  more  or  less 
irregular  and  rolling  in  its  course,  and  the  roof  was  soft 
and  weak. 

Subsequent  to  August,  1872,  the  gangway  was  driven 
some  distance  further  to  the  north,  and  the  coal  was 
said  to  improve  in  quality  as  they  advanced.  But 
whether  in  reality  it  did  so  or  not,  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  improvement  in  any  case  was  sufficiently  great 
to  produce  a  good  marketable  quality  of  coal,  and  the 
enterprise  was  shortly  afterwards  abandoned. 

The  mouth  of  the  tunnel  was  about  eighty  feet  above 
low  water.  Both  the  tunnel  and  the  gangway,  with  a 
view  to  furnishing  them  with  double  tracks  throughout, 
were  foolishly  driven  of  twice  the  size  which  was 
necessary;  a  bunker  was  built  at  the  mine  capable  of 
holding  about  one  thousand  tons  of  coal ;  a  railroad 
was  built  thirty-seven  hundred  feet  in  length  from  this 
bunker  to  the  landing  at  Jordan's  Point,  and  at  the 
landing  a  high  and  costly  wharf  was  also  built. 

It  is  the  general  belief  among  people  who  are  more 
or  less  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  matter  that  over 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  were  sunk  in 


OREGON.  95 

this  experiment.  Certain  it  is,  in  any  case.,  that  a  large 
sum  was  expended  here  in  outside  improvements  and 
works  of  a  character  which  contributed  nothing  towards 
proving  the  real  value  of  the  mine,  and  which  them- 
selves possessed  no  value  as  soon  as  the  mine  was 
proven  worthless. 

A  large  sum  of  money  has  also  been  expended  to  no 
purpose  by  the  "  Coos  Bay  Union  Coal  Company,"  at  a 
locality  known  as  the  "Utter  Mine."  Here,  also, 
bunkers  were  erected,  and  a  railroad  several  miles  in 
length  was  built,  with  wharves,  etc.  The  mine  is  sit- 
uated some  distance  to  the  south  of  the  head  of  Isthmus 
Slough.  Of  this  property  I  cannot  speak  from  personal 
observation,  not  having  visited  the  mine  myself,  though 
I  have  seen  some  very  poor  coal  which  was  said  to  have 
come  from  there.  I  am  informed,  however,  by  a  gen- 
tleman who  has  seen  the  mine,  and  whose  statements  I 
consider  reliable,  that  in  order  to  reach  the  coal  a  tun- 
nel was  driven  in  a  south-easterly  direction  some  five 
hundred  or  six  hundred  feet  through  sandstone,  and 
that  a  gangway  was  then  driven,  nearly  east  and  wrest, 
for  a  distance  of  some  seventeen  hundred  feet  along  the 
bed,  whose  dip  was  southerly  at  an  angle  of  some  16° 
or  17°.  The  bed  itself  was  about  six  feet  in  thickness, 
with  one  streak  of  clay-slate  five  or  six  inches  thick  in 
the  middle.  The  upper  bench  of  coal  was  of  pretty 
good  quality,  but  the  lower  one  was  soft.  My  informant 
thinks  there  would  be  a  fair  prospect  for  a  paying  mine 
here  were  it  not  for  the  cost  of  transportation.  He 
adds,  however,  that  there  is  only  a  very  short  lift  of 
coal  above  the  level  of  the  present  gangway,  and  as  the 
configuration  of  the  surface  does  not  admit  of  driving  a 


96  COAL  MINES. 

tunnel  at  a  lower  level,  it  would  be  necessary  to  sink  in 
order  to  get  the  coal. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  add  to  the  above  statements 
concerning  this  mine,  the  simple  fact  that  its  location 
is  such  tli at  the  cost  of  transporting  its  coal  from  the 
mine  to  navigable  water  would  prevent  its  competing 
successfully  with  other  mines  which  are  much  more  fa- 
vorably situated  in  this  respect.  Mr.  Utter  informs  me 
that  this  company  has  shipped  altogether  about  ten 
thousand  tons  of  coal.  It  might  be  interesting  to  know 
how  much  this  coal  has  cost  per  ton. 

There  is  also  another  property  owned  by  the  so-called 
"  North  Pacific  Coal  Company,"  and  situated  at  no  great 
distance  from  the  Utter  mine,  upon  which  considerable 
money  has  been  spent,  but  to  which  the  same  obstacle 
has  been  fatal  from  the  beginning,  viz. :  the  cost  of 
transportation. 

But  among  all  the  mistakes  which  have  been  made  at 
Coos  Bay,  there  is  none  so  conspicuous  or  so  inexcusa- 
ble as  that  involved  in  the  opening  of  what  is  known 
as  the  "Henryville  mine;"  and  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  in  the  annals  of  coal  mining  anywhere  an  instance 
of  grosser  ignorance  and  incapacity,  combined  with 
more  reckless  folly,  than  has  been  displayed  in  the  so- 
called  development  of  this  pseudo-mine. 

The  locality  is  on  the  right  bank  of  Isthmus  Slough, 
some  three  miles  above  Coos  City,  and  about  at  the 
head  of  any  practicable  navigation  in  the  slough.  It 
is  close  to  the  water's  edge,  and  the  situation,  there- 
fore, would  have  been  good  enough  if  a  mine  had 
existed  there.  But  there  was  never  any  reasonable  evi- 
dence of  any  probability  of  the  existence  in  this  prop- 


OREGON.  97 

erty  of  a  pound  of  coal  which  it  would  pay -to  mine. 
There  is,  however,  a  heavy  bed,  some  seven  or  eight 
feet  in  thickness,  of  alternating  layers  of  chiy-slate, 
"bone,"  and  other  worthless  materials,  including  some 
soft  and  dirty  coal,  which  strikes  about  north  and  south, 
and  dips  to  the  east.  Upon  this  bed,  a  slope  was 
started  down,  not  in  the  direction  of  the  dip  of  the  bed, 
which,  as  just  stated,  would  have  been  about  east,  but 
obliquely  to  it  with  a  course  of  about  N.  53°  E.  This 
slope  was  continued  down  in  this  direction,  following 
approximately  the  general  course  of  the  plane  of  the 
bed  through  faults  and  disturbances  of  various  kinds,, 
and  with  an  average  pitch  of  about  10°  or  12°,  for  a  dis- 
tance of  some  tivelve  hundred  feet,  without  any  visible 
improvement  whatever  in  the  character  of  the  materials 
which  constitute  the  bed,  and  with  no  other  result  than 
that  of  demonstrating  the  fact  that  this  bed,  worthless 
as  it  is  anyhow,  is  also  considerably  broken  by  faults 
and  other  disturbances.  This  was  the  mine!  But  this 
is  not  all.  A  pair  of  costly  and  very  handsomely  fin- 
ished steam  engines,  said  to  have  been  originally  built 
for  use  in  the  Palace  Hotel  at  San  Francisco,  were  pur- 
chased and  sent  up  and  erected  there  for  hoisting 
engines.  Boilers,  pumps,  etc.,  were  supplied,  of  course. 
A  small  town  was  built.  A  bunker  was  erected  on  piles- 
in  the  water  near  the  middle  of  Isthmus  Slough,  capa- 
ble of  holding  nearly  one  thousand  tons  of  coal.  A 
track  from  the  mine  to  the  top  of  this  bunker  was  laid 
over  a  trestle-work,  also  resting  on  piles,  some  nine 
hundred  feet  in  length  and  about  fifty  feet  above  high 
water  in  the  slough.  No  screens  were  furnished  either 
at  the  mine  or  at  the  bunker,  it  being  asserted  that  "this 
7 


98  COAL  MINES. 

coal  was  of  such  superior  quality  (!)  that  it  needed  no 
screening,  the  fine  being  as  good  as  the  coarse."  More- 
over, the  bunker  itself  was  divided  in  its  interior  by 
vertical  cross-partitions  running  from  top  to  bottom  into 
ten  separate  compartments.  The  only  reason  which  I 
have  ever  heard  assigned  for  this  last  performance  is 
that  it  was  done  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  separate 
from  each  other  as  many  different  qualities  of  "supe- 
rior" coal;  all  of  which,  it  was  expected,  would  be 
obtained  from  this  same  utterly  worthless  bed. 

There  is  another  locality  upon  the  same  property,  a 
little  over  a  mile  north-easterly  from  here,  where  con- 
siderable money  has  also  been  foolishly  spent  in  sinking 
a  slope  some  five  hundred  feet  in  a  place  where  there 
was  abundance  of  evidence  on  the  surface  of  the  ground 
that  the  rocks  were  badly  crushed  and  broken,  as  they 
were  also  found  to  be  in  the  slope  itself.  But  this  is 
not  worthy  of  further  description. 

It  is  stated  by  good  authority  that  the  amount  of 
money  which  has  been  expended  on  this  Heuryville 
property  alone  considerably  exceeds  two  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars.  Nearly  the  whole  of  this  is  a  dead  loss, 
and  it  is  with  equal  certainty  a  loss  which  would  never 
have  happened  if  any  competent  person  had  been  sent 
to  examine  the  property  in  the  first  place. 


CHAPTER    III. 
WASHINGTON  TERRITORY. 

The  coal  mines  of  Washington  Territory  are  situated 
at  Bellingham  Bay,  close  to  the  British  Columbia  line, 
and  in  the  vicinity  of  Seattle,  on  the  eastern  shore  of 
Puget  Sound. 

BELLINGHAM  BAY  MINE. 

At  Bellingham  Bay  there  is  but  one  mine,  which  is 
owned  by  the  Bellingham  Bay  Coal  Company.  This 
mine  is  located  at  the  edge  of  the  shore  of  Bellingham 
Bay.  It  is  opened  by  a  slope  some  nine  hundred  feet 
in  length,  which  goes  down  on  the  bed  in  a  direction  N. 
30°  W.  magnetic,  with  a  pitch  of  about  35°.  About  one 
hundred  feet  of  the  length  of  this  slope  is  on  trestle- 
work,  above  ground.  The  slope  is  oblique  to  the  dip, 
the  course  of  which  at  this  point  is  about  N.  57°  W., 
magnetic. 

The  bed  here  worked  is  about  fourteen  feet  thick; 
but  it  contains  so  much  interstratified  slate  and  "bone" 
that  all  the  coal  has  to  be  carefully  sorted  by  hand  be- 
fore it  is  sent  to  market.  Moreover,  after  several  years' 
experience  in  working  the  whole  thickness  of  the  bed, 
it  was  at  last  discovered  that  the  lower  half  of  it  is  so 
dirty  that  it  is  better  economy  to  leave  it  in  the  mine 


100  COAL  MINES. 

than  it  is  to  attempt  to  work  it.  Accordingly,  for  the 
last  few  years,  only  about  seven  feet  in  thickness  of  the 
upper  part  of  the  bed  has  been  mined. 

At  several  times  during  its  history  this  mine  has  been 
on  fire,  and  once  or  twice  it  has  been  extinguished  by 
flooding  it  with  sea-water  from  the  bay. 

At  various  levels,  one  above  the  other  in  this  mine, 
four  gangways  have  been  driven  to  considerable  dis- 
tances north-easterly  from  the  slope.  To  the  south- 
west of  the  slope  one  gangway  was  driven  a  short 
distance  only,  running  directly  out  under  the  waters  of 
the  bay;  but  the  coal  in  this  direction  was  found  poor, 
and  the  works  took  fire,  and  this  portion  of  the  mine 
is  now  closed  up. 

Above  the  lowest  gangway,  running  north-easterly 
from  the  bottom  of  the  slope,  a  lift  extending  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  up  the  slope  has  been  practically 
exhausted,  and  is  now  abandoned  and  filled  with  water. 
The  three  gangways  remaining  above  tlis  top  of  this 
lift  are  now  known  as  the  "  upper,"  the  "middle,"  and 
the  "  lower"  gangways,  respectively.  The  middle  gang- 
way is  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  or  one  hundred 
and  ninety  feet  up  the  slope  above  the  lower  one.  The 
lower  gangway  is  about  twenty-two  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  in  length.  Its  course  in  starting  from  the  slope  is 
about  N.  33°  E.,  magnetic,  and  the  dip  of  the  bed  is 
here  about  33  J°.  But  in  going  north-east  the  gangway 
curves  gradually  around  to  the  north  and  west,  while  at 
the  same  time  the  dip  of  the  bed  gradually  diminishes, 
until  at  its  face  the  gangway  is  running  about  N.  21°  W., 
magnetic,  and  the  dip  of  the  bed  is  only  11°.  For  a 
distance  of  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  feet  from  the 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  101 

face  of  tins  gangway  back  towards  the  slope,  the  coal 
in  the  lift  between  this  and  the  middle  gangway  is  all 
worked  out.  For  the  remaining  fifteen  hundred  feet 
the  coal  in  this  lift  is  nearly  all  solid. 

The  middle  gangway  extends  north-easterly  from  the 
slope  about  seventeen  hundred  feet,  and  the  lift  between 
it  and  the  upper  gangway  is  exhausted  for  this  whole 
distance,  with  the  exception  of  some  ten  or  eleven 
rooms  stretching  backwards  four  hundred  and  fifty  to 
five  hundred  feet  from  the  face,  which  are  only  about 
half  worked  out. 

The  upper  gangway  was  driven  over  two  thousand 
feet  north-easterly,  and  all  the  coal  between  it  and  the 
surface  of  the  ground  is  exhausted. 

There  probably  remains  in  this  mine  an  available 
supply  of  coal,  if  no  accident  happens,  for  three  or  four 
years  to  come,  at  its  present  rate  of  production.  There 
is  some  fire-damp  in  this  bed,  and  it  requires  constant 
watchfulness,  though  naked  lights  are  generally  used. 

There  has  been  some  very  poor  management  displayed 
in  the  history  of  this  mine,  one  or  two  rather  amusing 
instances  of  which  it  may  be  well  enough  to  specify.  The 
water  immediately  in  front  of  the  mouth  of  the  mine  is 
shallow.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  build  a  tram-way 
for  some  little  distance  along  the  shore,  in  order  to  reach 
a  point  where  the  water  was  deep  enough  so  that  it  would 
not  be  necessary  to  build  too  long  a  wharf.  This  road, 
which  is  a  trifle  over  three-fourths  of  a  mile  in  length, 
was  built  with  an  ascending  grade  for  the  load,  though 
there  was  already  plenty  of  height  for  bunkers,  so  that 
in  hauling  the  coal  from  the  mine  to  the  bunkers  it  has 
constantly  required  more  than  two  mules  to  do  the  same 


102  COAL  MINES. 

work  which  would  easily  have  been  done  by  one  if  the 
road  had  had  a  proper  grade.  Also  in  the  bunkers, 
which  are  very  heavily  built,  the  screens  are  very  badly 
arranged,  and  the  floor  of  the  bunker  has  a  slope  of  only 
25°,  so  that  it  is  necessary  to  rehandle  most  of  the  coal 
after  it  has  passed  the  screens  in  order  to  get  the 
bunkers  filled.  Again,  in  the  construction  of  the  wharf 
itself,  the  attempt  was  made,  in  the  face  of  the  teredo 
navalis,  which  is  very  active  and  destructive  here,  to 
render  the  wharf  more  durable  by  merely  increasing  the 
number  of  the  unprotected  piles  which  were  driven  to 
support  it;  the  result  being  a  forest  of  three  or  four 
times  the  number  of  piles  which  were  of  any  use  beneath 
the  wharf,  all  of  which,  of  course,  are  being  as  rapidly 
eaten  away  as  any  single  pile  would  be. 

In  the  country  a  few  miles  back  of  Bellingham  Bay, 
and  on  the  north  side  of  Whatcom  Lake,  there  has  been 
discovered  a  bed  of  caking  coal,  which  the  Bellingham 
Bay  Coal  Company  has  spent,  and  is  spending,  some 
thousands  of  dollars,  rather  unwisely  in  my  opinion,  in 
attempting  to  develop.  This  bed  strikes  north-easterly 
and  south-westerly,  and  dips  at  varying  angles  to  the 
north- west.  At  one  point,  which  I  visited  in  August, 
1876,  the  bed  was  well  exposed,  and  showed  a  thickness 
of  from  seven  to  eight  feet.  A  little  tunnel  had  also 
been  driven  in  upon  it  here  for  a  distance  of  something 
like  a  hundred  feet.  All  of  the  coal  from  this  bed 
would  coke  well ;  but  the  bed  was  very  dirty,  and 
contained  large  quantities  of  intermingled  slate  and 
"bone."  It  was  easy  to  select  hand  specimens  here 
of  a  clean  and  beautiful  quality  of  fat,  caking  coal, 
which  would  be  very  valuable  if  found  in  a  regular  bed 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  103 

of  uniform  and  equal  quality  of  even  half  'the  thick- 
ness of  the  bed  which  was  here  exposed;  but  no  large 
quantity  of  any  such  quality  of  coal  was  visible.  There 
is  also  abundant  evidence  that  the  heavy  body  of 
nearly  unaltered  sandstone  and  shales  which  overlies 
this  bed  has  been  a  good  deal  disturbed  by  faults 
and  dislocations.  But  this  is  not  the  worst  of  the  in- 
dications. The  coal  itself  is  almost  immediately  un- 
derlaid by  highly  metamorphic  talcose  and  argillaceous 
slate,  traversed  in  all  directions  by  little,  irregular 
stringers  of  quartz,  and  perfectly  similar  in  appear- 
ance and  general  character  to  vast  quantities  of  the  same 
material,  which  may  be  found  among  the  auriferous 
slates  of  the  western  slope  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

I  think,  therefore,  that  the  expenditure  of  probably 
some  eight  or  ten  thousand  dollars,  which  is  being  made 
here  in  driving  a  tunnel  for  the  purpose  of  opening  up 
this  bed  in  depth  is  not  very  well  warranted,  and  that 
there  is  little  probability  of  its  developing  anything 
sufficiently  regular  and  uniform  in  quantity  and  quality 
to  pay  for  working. 

TALBOT  MINE. 

The  only  coal  mines  yet  worked  to  any  noteworthy 
extent  in  Washington  Territory  besides  that  of  Belling- 
ham  Bay,  are  those  of  the  Seattle  Coal  and  Transporta- 
tion Company,  the  Kenton  Coal  Company,  and  the 
Talbot  Coal  Company. 

Both  the  Eenton  and  the  Talbot  mines  have  been 
opened  within  the  last  three  or  four  years,  and  though 
I  visited  both  of  them  in  January,  1875,  I  am  not  so 


104  COAL  MINES. 

well  informed  with  reference  to  their  later  develop- 
ments as  with  reference  to  those  of  the  Seattle  Coal  and 
Transportation  Company. 

The  opening  of  the  Talbot  mine  is  situated  on  the 
south-east  quarter  of  section  19  of  township  23  north, 
range  5  east,  Willamette  meridian.  In  January,  1875, 
a  tunnel  had  been  driven  here  some  two  hundred  feet, 
starting  in  a  north-easterly  direction,  and  then  curving 
around  to  nearly  an  east  course. 

In  the  face  of  this  tunnel  there  was  exposed  a  bed  of 
coal  from  six  to  eight  feet  thick,  of  which  the  lower 
three  or  four  feet  seemed  to  be  pretty  clean  and  pure, 
though  rather  soft  coal.  The  upper  portion  of  the  bed 
was  still  softer,  and  was  also  more  or  less  impure.  The 
bed  dipped  at  a  gentle  angle,  which  I  estimated  at 
7°  or  8°  to  the  south-east.  The  roof  and  floor  were  also 
soft  and  weak,  and  there  was  not  more  than  twenty-five 
or  thirty  feet  of  cover  over  the  coal,  even  at  the  face  of 
the  tunnel.  Nevertheless,  the  quality  of  the  coal  was 
such  that  I  then  considered  the  prospect  fair  for  a  de- 
velopment of  something  of  a  mine  there.  Since  then  a 
good  deal  of  additional  work  has  been  done,  and  the 
company  are  now  shipping  a  reputedly  good  quality  of 
of  coal  to  San  Francisgo;  though  whether  it  be  at  a 
profit  or  at  a  loss,  I  am  not  informed. 

KENTON  MINE. 

The  property  of  the  Kenton  Coal  Company  is  located 
in  sections  17,  20  and  29  of  township  23  north,  range  5 
east,  Willamette  meridian.  The  mouth  of  the  mine  is 
situated  near  the  left  bank  of  Cedar  river  about  a  mile 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  105 

from  its  mouth,  and  in  the  south-west  quarter'of  section 
17.,  Two  beds  have  been  worked  here  to  a  considerable 
extent,  both  of  which  strike  about  S.  10°  W.  true 
course,  and  dip  to  the  east  with  an  average  inclination 
of  about  15°. 

The  upper  bed  is  about  seventeen  feet  in  thickness, 
but  contains  some  interstratified  bone,  there  being  about 
ten  feet  of  good  coal  in  the  bed.  The  lower  bed  has  a 
total  thickness  of  about  thirteen  feet,  of  which  the 
lower  five  or  six  feet  is  so  bony  that  it  is  worthless, 
while  the  upper  seven  or  eight  feet  is  nearly  all  good 
coal.  Between  these  two  beds  there  is  a  thickness  of 
about  eighty  feet  of  sandstone  and  shales,  including 
one  bed  about  five  feet  thick  of  impure  coal.  The  up- 
per bed  was  first  opened  by  a  level  tunnel  driven 
directly  in  upon  its  course  a  distance  of  some  twelve 
or  fifteen  hundred  feet,  and  a  considerable  quantity  of 
coal  was  extracted  from  it.  But  after  the  opening  of 
the  lower  bed,  the  upper  one  was  abandoned,  as  the 
coal  in  the  lower  bed  was  found  to  be  cleaner,  and  more 
cheaply  mined  than  in  the  upper  one.  The  lower  bed 
was  first  reached  by  a  level  tunnel  driven  obliquely 
to  its  course  through  the  overlying  strata,  a  distance  of 
nearly  two  hundred  feet  to  the  coal.  From  this  point  a 
gangway  has  been  driven  south  a  distance  of  nearly  two 
thousand  feet,  and  a  large  quantity  of  coal  extracted. 
Within  this  two  thousand  feet  there  has  been  found  a 
single  fault,  consisting  of  a  large  jump  up  to  the  south. 
But  this  is  the  only  disturbance  of  any  magnitude  that 
has  been  found. 

When  the  Kenton  mine  was  first  opened  in  1874,  the 
company  built  about  two  miles  of  railroad  from  the 


106  COAL  MINES. 

mouth  of  tlieir  mine  to  a  point  of  shipment  upon  Black 
river,  a  mile  or  two  below  the  mouth  of  Cedar  river. 
From  this  point  the  coal  was  sent  down  the  Black  and 
Duwamish.  rivers  to  Seattle  in  barges.  They  subse- 
quently, in  1875,  extended  this  line  of  railroad  about 
two  miles  further  to  a  point  upon  the  Duwamish  river 
about  nine  miles  from  Seattle.  These  four  miles  of 
railroad  were  built  along  the  previously  surveyed  and 
partially  graded  line  of  the  Seattle  and  Walla  Walla 
railroad.  Still  later,  during  the  year  1876,  the  Seattle 
and  Walla  Walla  Railroad  Company  built  and  equipped 
the  remaining  nine  miles  of  road  to  Seattle,  so  that 
both  the  Renton  and  Talbot  Coal  companies  now  have 
a  continuous  all  rail  line  direct  from  the  mouths  of  the 
mines  to  Seattle. 

On  the  north-west  quarter  of  the  south-west  quarter 
of  section  20,  the  Renton  Company  has  recently  struck, 
by  boring  at  the  depth  of  about  seventy  feet  beneath 
the  surface,  a  bed  of  coal  which  is  believed  to  be  iden- 
tical with  that  upon  which  the  Talbot  Company  is  work- 
ing, and  probably  different  from  either  of  those  already 
opened  by  the  Renton  Company.  It  is  stated  that  the 
bed,  as  passed  through  in  boring,  was  about  eleven  feet 
thick,  with,  as  nearly  *ts  could  be  judged,  from  nine  to 
ten  feet  of  good  workable  coal. 

SEATTLE  COAL  AND  TRANSPORTATION  COMPANY'S  MINES. 

The  openings  of  the  mines  of  the  Seattle  Coal  and 
Transportation  Company  are  situated  about  ten  miles 
in  an  air  line  in  a  south-easterly  direction  from  the  town 
of  Seattle,  and  near  the  centre  of  section  27  of  town- 
ship 24  north,  range  5  east,  Willamette  meridian. 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  107 

From  the  mines  a  railroad  of  three  feet  'gauge  ex- 
tends about  three  miles  to  the  top  of  the  bluff  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  Lake  Washington.  Here  the  loaded 
cars  are  lowered  over  an  automatic  plane  about  nine 
hundred  feet  in  length  to  the  edge  of  the  lake.  They 
are  then  taken  on  board  of  a  barge,  and  towed  a  dis- 
tance of  some  eight  miles  to  the  head  of  Foster's  Bay, 
a  little  cove  in  the  western  shore  of  the  lake.  From 
here  a  railroad  extends  about  one-third  of  a  mile  across 
the  portage  between  Lake  Washington  and  Lake  Union. 
The  cars  are  then  taken  on  a  steam  barge,  which  carries 
them  some  three  miles  to  the  southern  end  of  Lake 
Union,  whence  a  railroad  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile 
in  length  leads  to  the  point  of  shipment  at  Seattle. 

The  town  of  Seattle  itself  is  located  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  Duwamish  Bay,  and  about  the  north-west  cor- 
ner of  section  5,  township  24  north,  range  4  east. 

The  coal  field  in  the  vicinity  of  Seattle  was  carefully 
and  extensively  studied  by  Mr.  T.  A.  Blake  during  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1868,  for  the  benefit  of  certain 
private  parties  in  San  Francisco;  and  its  perfect  availa- 
bility and  great  value  as  a  source  of  supply  for  the  San 
Francisco  market  were  at  that  time  fully  demonstrated 
by  the  results  of  his  observations. 

But  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines  were  then  in  the  freshness 
of  their  prime,  and  the  short-sighted  policy  of  some  of 
the  gentlemen  for  whom  Mr.  Blake  was  acting,  led  them 
to  doubt  his  opinions,  and  to  maintain  in  opposition  to 
his  better  judgment,  that  it  was  impossible  for  coal 
from  Seattle  to  ever  compete  in  the  San  Francisco 
market  with  coal  from  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines.  The  re- 
sult was  that  they  neglected  to  secure,  as  they  might 


108  COAL  MINES. 

have  done  at  that  time,  for  a  price  which  was  a  trifle  in 
comparison  with  its  intrinsic  worth,  a  coal  property 
which  is  already  proving  itself  by  that  sort  of  logic 
which  business  men,  who  are  not  engineers,  can  under- 
stand, to  be  the  most  valuable  coal  mining  property  yet 
discovered  in  the  United  States  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains. 

After  Mr.  Blake's  examinations  there  in  1868,  the 
Seattle  coal  field  lay  idle  for  about  three  years.  But 
in  1871  some  new  parties  took  hold  of  it,  and  made  the 
first  real  attempts  to  mine  coal  here  for  market.  The 
shipments  to  San  Francisco  were  in  that  year  a  little 
less  than  five  thousand  tons.  For  the  succeeding  three 
years  the  shipments  were  also  small,  which  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  owners  were  men  of  small  means,  and 
were  obliged  to  struggle  against  all  the  disadvantages 
of  a  lack  of  adequate  capital,  combined  with  the  steady 
and  active  opposition  of  a  powerful  clique  of  capitalists 
in  San  Francisco.  It  has,  therefore,  been  only  since 
1874  that  they  have  been  in  a  position  to  be  able  to 
really  begin  to  make  the  market  feel  what  the  capacities 
of  the  Seattle  coal  field  are. 

Whether  Seattle  coal  is  capable  of  competing  with 
Mt.  Diablo  coal  or  not,  may  be  judged  somewhat  from 
the  statistics  of  the  last  three  years.  In  1874,  the  re- 
ceipts of  Mt.  Diablo  coal  at  San  Francisco  are  stated  to 
have  been  two  hundred  and  six  thousand  two  hundred 
and  fifty-five  tons,  while  in  1876  they  were  one  hundred 
and  eight  thpusand  and  seventy-eight  tons. 

In  1874,  the  receipts  of  Seattle  coal  are  given  at  nine 
thousand  and  twenty-seven  tons,  and  in  1876  at  ninety- 
five  thousand  three  hundred  and  fourteen  tons.  These 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  109 

figures  are  taken  from  the  San  Francisco.  Commercial 
Herald  and  Market  Hevietv,  whose  statistics  are  generally 
the  most  reliable  of  any  that  are  published  concerning 
the  coal  trade  here. 

It  would  exceed  the  proposed  limits  of  this  little  vol- 
ume for  me  to  give  here  all  the  details  of  information 
contained  in  Mr.  Blake's  reports  and  letters  of  1868, 
which  he  has  kindly  permitted  me  to  use;  but  I  shall 
give  the  more  important  portions  of  them.  And,  in  the 
first  place,  a  few  words  with  reference  to  the  topography 
of  the  region  may  not  be  out  of  place.  In  an  unpub- 
lished report,  dated  April,  1868,  he  says: 

"The  coal  field  in  question,  so  far  as  hitherto  proved, 
lies  on  the  east  side  of  Lake  Washington,  in  King  County, 
Washington  Territory,  This  lake,  which  is  long  and 
narrow,  has  its  longer  axis  in  a  general  northerly  and 
southerly  direction,  and  occupies  a  depression  in  the 
hills  east  of  the  town  of  Seattle.  A  narrow  strip  of 
high  land  separates  it  from  the  waters  of  Seattle  Bay 
(i.  e.,  Duwamish  Bay). 

"Immediately  behind  the  town,  the  hills,  covered 
with  dense  forests  of  spruce  and  cedar,  rise  quite  rap- 
idly until  the  summit  of  the  ridge  is  attained,  at  an 
elevation  of  perhaps  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet.  After 
a  series  of  elevations  and  depressions  for  a  distance  of 
about  a  mile  and  a  half,  the  ground  then  falls  rapidly 
to  the  borders  of  Lake  Washington. 

"On  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake 'Washington,  the  land 
is  high,  and  is  cut  by  streams  flowing  from  the  east  and 
discharging  into  the  lake. 

"Two  of  these  streams  are  known  as  Coal  Creek  and 
Honey  Dew  Creek,  the  latter  being  the  more  -southerly 


110  COAL  MINES. 

of  the  two.  The  ridge  between  them,  commencing  ab- 
ruptly at  the  lake,  rises  at  intervals,  until  at  a  point 
some  three  miles  east  it  attains  an  elevation  of  between 
five  and  six  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  lake. 
It  has  its  lateral  canons  or  swales  opening  north  and 
south  into  the  valleys  of  Coal  and  Honey  Dew  Creeks. 
It  is  in  this  main  ridge,  striking  in  a  direction  nearly 
east  and  west,  that  several  heavy  beds  of  a  superior 
quality  of  coal  are  known  to  exist." 

He  then  proceeds  to  describe  first  a  bed  whose  out- 
crop was  visible  on  the  north  side  of  Coal  Creek  and 
close  to  the  line  between  sections  22  and  27,  as  follows : 

"On  the  north  side  of  the  creek,  and  crossing  a  little 
ravine  opening  into  the  canon  of  Coal  Creek,  a  bed  of 
coal  has  been  exposed  for  a  continuous  distance  of  thirty 
feet  or  more.  This  bed  may  be  considered  at  least  five 
feet  in  thickness,  though  the  carbonaceous  matter  ex- 
tends over  a  width  of  eight  feet.  The  upper  portion 
however  is  largely  intermixed  with  shale  and  is  value- 
less. The  strike  of  the  bed  is  about  ten  degrees  north 
of  west  or  south  of  east  (true  course)  and  its  dip  thirty- 
five  degrees  (35°)  towards  the  north,  consequently  into 
the  hill  on  the  north  side  of  the  creek.  The  bed  is  in- 
cluded in  a  soft  sandstone  which  disintegrates  rapidly 
on  exposure  to  the  atmosphere.  From  this  point  the 
creek  flows  in  a  general  westerly  direction  for  about 
half  a  mile.  It  then  bends  to  the  north-west,  and  within 
a  short  distance  cuts  the  line  of  the  coal  bed.  At  the 
latter  point  an  exposure  on  the  bank  of  the  creek  shows 
a  bed  of  coal  of  similar  character  and  size  with  the  same 
dip  and  trend.  It  may  be  considered  as  almost  certain 
that  the  bed  between  these  points  is  continuous.  But 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  Ill 

its  position,  dipping  into  the  hill,  and  the.fadt  that  the 
vertical  height  of  its  line  of  outcrop  is  nowhere  very 
considerable,  are  not  in  its  favor.  No  very  great  quan- 
tity of  coal  could  be  taken  from  above  the  water  level, 
and  when  that  was  reached,  mining  would  become  more 
expensive,  as  pumping  and  hoisting  would  be  neces- 
sary." 

He  next  describes  three  much  more  important  out- 
crops situated  farther  up  Coal  Creek,  as  follows : 

"About  the  central  portion  of  section  26,  three  coal 
beds  cross  the  stream  obliquely,  and  are  all  included 
within  a  distance  of  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
at  right  angles  to  their  strike.  These  beds  show  a  per- 
fect parallelism  in  dip  and  strike  to  each  other,  and  to 
the  bed  already  noted  as  occurring  farther  down  the 
creek  and  on  its  northern  side. 

"The  lowest  of  the  three  beds  has  been  opened  by  a 
tunnel  driven  in  upon  its  course  from  the  left  bank  of 
the  creek  a  distance  of  one  hundred  feet. 

"The  middle  bed,  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  approxi- 
mately above  the  first,  is  simply  exposed  in  the  face  of 
the  bank." 

"The  third  or  upper  one  of  the  three,  about  two  hun- 
dred feet  from  the  second,  is  opened  by  a  tunnel  on  its 
course  sixty  feet  in  length. 

"The  following  are  the  details  of  the  cross-sections 
of  these  three  beds  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  beginning 
with  the  lowest: 


112  COAL  MINES. 

"  No.  1.     Thickness  nine  feet  arranged  as  follows: 

Feet.  Inches. 

Coal  of  superior  quality,  free  from  impurities. .  3  6 

Clay .- 0  3 

Coal  of  superior  quality,  free  from  impurities  3  0 

Clay 0  3 

Coal  of  superior  quality,  free  from  impurities. .  2  0 

"No.  2.  Thickness  about  eight  feet.  Section  not  well 
exposed. 

"  No.  3.     Thickness  seven  feet,  arranged  as  follows: 

Compact  coal  of  superior  quality 4  ft.  0  in. 

Clay Oft.  3  in. 

Coal 8  in.  to  12  in. 

Clay 3  in.  to    5  in . 

Coal 4  in. 

Soft  clay-slate  with  intermingled  coal. .  .12  in.  to  15  in. 

"It  thus  appears  that  the  lower  bed  will  furnish  eight 
and  one  half  feet  of  good  marketable  coal  in  a  thickness 
of  nine  feet.  In  the  middle  bed  the  quantity  is  uncer- 
tain. In  the  upper  bed  the  lower  five  feet  is  coal  of 
nearly  uniform  quality,  excepting  a  single  clay  seam  of 
about  three  inches  thickness,  and  would  all  be  mined. 

"The  lower  one  alone  of  these  three  beds  will  prob- 
ably furnish  a  greater  mass  of  good  coal  in  a  given 
length  and  breadth  than  any  mine  yet  worked  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  of  North  America. 

"Proceeding  westerly  on  the  course  of  the  beds,  the 
hill  rises  quite  rapidly,  and  the  highest  summit  is  per- 
haps two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  creek  where 
the  beds  have  been  opened  by  the  tunnels  already  men- 
tioned. Their  strike  is  such  as  to  continue  on  in  the 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  113 

main  ridge  towards  the  lake.  As  an  evidence  of  their 
continuity,  two  of  them  have  been  exposed  near  the 
east  line  of  section  27,  at  a  point  over  half  a  mile  west 
from  that  at  which  they  cross  Coal  Creek.  We  also 
have  in  the  upper  bed  of  all  pn  the  north  side  of  Coal 
Creek,  evidence  of  continuity  of  these  beds,  which  show 
at  these  various  points  an  identical  dip  and  strike,  and 
further  still  a  probability  of  their  extending  well  on  to- 
wards if  not  to  the  shore  of  Lake  Washington." 

Mr.  Blake  adds  further  in  this  report:  "From  what 
has  been  said,  it  would  appear  that  the  property  as  a 
whole  is  one  whose  development  will  form  an  important 
step  in  the  history  of  our  productive  interests.  It  is 
somewhat  inconveniently  located,  demanding  both  water 
and  land  transportation  before  the  delivery  of  the  coal 
at  a  favorable  shipping-point.  However,  its  favorable 
situation  and  surroundings  for  inexpensive  mining,  to- 
gether with  the  superior  quality  and  great  quantity  of 
the  coal,  more  than  compensate  for  the  other  disadvan- 
tages of  its  location. 

"The  question  of  our  future  coal  supply  is  a  most 
important  one.  California,  though  rich  in  metals  and 
abounding  in  wealth,  is  without  any  extensive  coalfield. 
The  Mt.  Diablo  mines  are  not  'inexhaustible,  and  fur- 
nish but  an  inferior  article  of  coal." 

As  already  stated,  this  report  was  written  in  April, 
1868.  In  September  of  the  same  year,  I  collated  from 
letters  received  from  Mr.  Blake  in  the  meantime  a  quan- 
tity of  additional  information  and  discoveries  relating 
to  the  Seattle  coal  beds,  from  which  I  now  extract  the 
following: 

"In  May  last,  or  about  a  month  subsequent  to  the 
8 


114  COAL  MINES. 

date  of  the  preceding  report,  Mr.  Blake  again  went  to 
Washington  Territory,  with  the  purpose,  among  other 
things,  of  investigating  more  fully  than  previous  oppor- 
tunities had  permitted  him  to  do,  certain  important 
questions  relating  to  the  extent  and  general  character 
of  the  Seattle  coal  field.  He  has  now  been  for  some 
time  in  the  vicinity  of  Seattle,  and  the  following  state- 
ments are  collated  from  his  recent  letters." 

Country  West  of  Lake  Washington. 

"The  strike  of  the  coal  beds,  as  shown  upon  sections 
26  and  27,  is  about  N.  80°  W.  (true  course),  and  their 
dip  is  about  35°  to  the  north. 

"By  reference  to  a  map,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
direction  of  this  strike  produced  to  the  west,  crosses 
Mercer  Island  in  Lake  Washington,  and  cuts  the  mouth 
of  the  Duwamish  river  about  three  miles  south  of 
Seattle. 

"Moreover,  the  parallelism  of  the  different  beds  and 
the  apparent  regularity  and  continuity  of  the  inclosing 
strata,  wherever  they  were  exposed  and  could  be  exam- 
ined, to  the  east  of  the  lake,  were  so  complete  as  to 
lend  plausibility  to  the  supposition  that  the  coal  might 
continue  uninterruptedly  westward,  not  only  to  the  lake, 
but  also  across  it  and  through  Mercer  Island  to  the  op- 
posite shore,  and  perhaps  be  ultimately  again  found 
upon  the  main  land  between  the  lake  and  the  Duwamish 
river,  or  even  still  farther  west. 

"Under  these  circumstances,  it  became,  of  course,  a 
matter  of  the  greatest  importance  to  collect  all  the 
available  stratigraphical  and  lithological  information 
bearing  upon  this  question,  and  thus  ascertain  as  defi- 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  115 

nitely  as  possible  the  probability  or  improbability  of 
such  being  the  fact;  for  if  the  coal  could  be  found  upon 
or  near  the  tide-water  to  the  west,  its  extraction  and 
shipment  would  become  a  matter  involving  far  less  ex- 
pense and  a  corresponding  increase  of  profit. 

"To  this  point,  then,  the  attention  of  Mr.  Blake  has 
been  especially  directed.  But  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  exploration  have  been  considerable.  There  are 
few  or  no  exposures  of  the  strata  along  the  eastern 
shore  line  itself  of  Lake  Washington,  and  none  what- 
ever upon  Mercer  Island,  while  the  exposures  upon  the 
main  land  west  of  the  lake  are  few  and  far  between,  the 
surface  being  generally  composed  of  glacial  drift  and 
alluvium,  and  the  whole  country  being  covered  with 
dense  forests  filled  with  fallen  trees  and  underbrush. 
The  investigation  has  therefore  necessarily  been  slow; 
but  with  the  exception  of  the  interior. of  the  peninsula 
or  cape  lying  west  of  the  Duwamish  river,  the  whole 
country  has  been  prettj  well  examined  from  Seattle  as 
far  south  as  the  south  end  of  Lake  Washington,  and 
from  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake  as  far  west  as  Admi- 
ralty Inlet  and  the  bluffs  along  its  western  shore.  The 
results  of  this  examination,  so  far,  have  not  been  favor- 
able. 

"Carbonaceous  matter  has  been  discovered  at  various 
localities,  but  nowhere  in  quality  and  quantity  sufficient 
to  warrant  the  conclusion  that  it  forms  the  outcrop  of 
any  workable  and  valuable  bed  of  coal. 

"With  reference  to  the  important  question  of  the 
course  and  continuity  of  the  strata,  enough  has  been 
learned  to  show  that  the  regularity  and  uniformity, 
which  seem  to  be  so  complete  throughout  the  coal  field 


116  COAL  MINES. 

to  the  east  of  Lake  Washington,  do  not  continue 
through  the  country  lying  west  of  it.  On  the  contrary, 
between  the  lake  and  the  western  shore  of  Admiralty 
Inlet,  the  rocks,  where  exposed,  vary  considerably  in 
lithological  character,  and  dip  and  strike  in  different 
directions,  showing  that  there  exists  here  either  a  sys- 
tem of  varied  flexures  in  the  strata,  or  a  series  of  exten- 
sive faults  and  dislocations,  perhaps  both. 

"  It  does  not  necessarily  follow  from  this  that  work- 
able beds  of  coal  may  not  exist  somewhere  in  this  region 
west  of  the  lake.  But  it  does  follow  that  it  is  impossible 
to  say  with  any  certainty  in  advance  of  actual  discovery, 
whether  such  is  or  is  not  the  case,  or  to  predicate  with 
any  degree  of  probability  where  they  may  be  found,  in 
case  they  do  exist." 

East  of  Lake  Washington. 

11  But  if  explorations  generally,  west  of  Lake  Wash- 
ington, have  been  thus  unfavorable  in  their  results,  the 
case  has  been  far  otherwise  with  the  additional  ones 
which  have  been  made  towards  the  east. 

"  Here  the  coal-bearing  strata  have  been  found  to  rest 
upon  the  northern  flank  of  a  mass  of  metamorphic  rock 
which  appears  to  form  a  belt  stretching  through  the 
country  east  and  west  a  short  distance  to  the  south  of 
the  coal  beds,  and  may  have  formed  an  anticlinal  axis 
to  the  upheaval  which  has  raised  the  coal  to  its  present 
position.  Upon  it  the  coal-bearing  strata  appear  to  lie 
with  remarkable  uniformity  and  parallelism  of  strike 
and  dip  wherever  they  have  been  observed,  and  no  evi- 
dence of  faults  or  dislocations  has  been  discovered 
here.  But  other  outcrops  of  coal  have  been  found, 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  117 

which  enhance  in  no  small  degree  the  probable  extent 
and  value  of  this  coal  field,  already  apparently  immense; 
since  they  go  to  show  the  existence  here  of  other  valu- 
able beds,  different  from  any  of  those  referred  to  in  the 
preceding  report." 

Some  four  miles  east  of  Lake  Washington  there  is 
situated  another  lake  known  as  "  Sammammish,"  or 
"  Squak"  Lake.  A  creek  runs  into  this  lake  from  the 
south-east.  At  a  point  in  the  course  of  this  creek,  close 
to  the  line  between  sections  33  and  34  of  township  24 
north,  range  6  east,  "a  very  heavy  bed  of  coal — at  least 
sixteen  feet  in  thickness — is  exposed  at  intervals  for 
one  thousand  feet  or  more  by  a  small  stream  down  the 
side  of  a  steep  mountain.  A  portion  of  this  bed  con- 
tains considerable  slate.  But  a  quarter  of  a  mile  north 
of  it  there  is  another  bed,  which  is  a  nine-foot  bed  of 
dear,  fine  coal  of  best  quality  "  "  It  is  probable  that  this 
last  is  the  same  bed  as  the  lowest  of  the  three  which 
cross  Coal  Creek  near  the  centre  of  section  26,  township 
24  north,  range  5  east." 

1  'Again,  on  section  27,  in  the  latter  township,  at  sev- 
eral places  along  a  small  creek  which  runs  into  the  little 
lake  called  'Boren  Lake,'  near  the  south-west  corner 
of  the  same  section,  there  is  to  be  seen  the  outcrop  of  a 
very  massive  bed  of  coal,  which  is,  in  places,  nearly 
twenty  feet  thick,  but  contains  a  good  deal  of  slate. 
This*  is  the  lowest  of  all  the  beds  yet  discovered  here, 
and  may  be  the  continuation  of  the  lower  one  of  the 
two  already  described  as  seen  at  '  Squak.' ' 

Then  follow  the  descriptions  of  several  other  crop- 
pings.  One  of  them  on  Coal  Creek,  in  the  south-east 
part  of  section  26,  had  been  recently  exposed  by  a 


118  COAL  MINES. 

cross-cut  in  the  bank  bordering  the  stream,  and  showed 
a  thickness  of  from  seven  to  eight  feet.  The  lower  part 
of  it  was  slaty,  and  the  upper  portion  intermixed  with 
dirt.  But  at  least  three  feet  of  the  middle  of  the  bed 
was  marketable  coal. 

Near  the  south-east  corner  of  section  25  there  was 
another  outcrop,  respecting  the  size  and  character  of 
which,  however,  no  particulars  were  received.  A  third 
one  was  near  Coal  Creek,  and  close  to  the  centre  of  the 
north-west  quarter  of  section  26,  and  was  said  to  promise 
about  four  feet  of  good  coal — two  feet  on  each  side  of  a 
streak  of  slate  or  "  bone'7  about  one  foot  in  thickness. 

It  was  stated  at  the  same  time  that  the  two  beds 
already  mentioned  (see  page  113)  as  having  been  ex- 
posed near  the  east  line  of  section  27,  at  a  point  over 
half  a  mile  west  from  that  at  which  they  cross  Coal 
Creek  were  believed  to  be  the  two  upper  ones  of  "the 
three"  which  cross  Coal  Creek  near  the  centre  of  section 
26,  and  that  the  upper  one  of  the  two  was  here  only 
about  four  feet  in  width,  while  at  Coal  Creek  it  is  seven 
feet;  the  lower  one  also,  being  evidently  narrower  than 
the  middle  one  of  the  three  beds  at  Coal  Creek.  And 
this  was  thought  to  indicate  a  possible  thinning  out  of 
the  beds  in  going  west.  We  shall  see  more  clearly  here- 
after how  nearly  this  surmise  came  to  the  actual  truth. 

I  continue  my  extracts:  "A  careful  re-examination 
has  also  been  recently  made  of  'the  three' beds  at  the 
point  where  they  cross  Coal  Creek.  There  is  nothing 
new  to  be  said  respecting  the  upper  bed  here.  Some 
opening  having  been  made,  however,  upon  the  middle 
bed,  which  is  mentioned  in  the  report  as  being  simply 
'  exposed  in  the  face  of  the  bank,'  a  view  has  been  ob- 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  119 

tained  of  its  cross-section.  The  present  condition  of  it, 
however,  is  not  such  as  to  reveal  its  true  character  with 
certainty.  But,  as  now  shown,  there  appears  to  be  a 
band  of  dirt  and  slate,  from  eighteen  inches  to  two  feet 
wide  running  through  the  middle  of  the  bed,  with  about 
two  and  a  half  feet  of  good  coal  on  each  side  of  it. 
4  With  regard  to  the  lowest  of  the  three, — the  nine  foot 
vein,'  says  Mr.  Blake,  'I  am  more  and  more  pleased  with 
it.  The  whole  bed  can  be  mined;  and  I  do  not  think 
more  than  three  inches  in  the  whole  nine  feet  will  be 
found  to  be  unmarketable.  It  is  certainly  a  noble  bed. 
Such  a  small  quantity  of  bone  compared  with  the  mass 
of  coal  in  the  bed  is  almost  inappreciable,  and  it  can 
only  be  detected  in  the  far  end  of  the  tunnel  by  the 
closest  observation.'  This  tunnel  will  be  recollected  is 
in  about  one  hundred  feet. 

"The  distance  along  the  line  of  strike  of  the  beds 
from  the  most  westerly  point,  where  workable  coal  has 
yet  been  found,  to  the  most  easterly  one  at  '  Squak'  is 
between  five  and  six  miles.  Throughout  this  distance, 
the  strike  and  dip  of  the  beds,  wherever  shown,  is  uni- 
formly the  same,  and  the  probability  is  that  the  coal  is 
continuous. 

"It  now  appears,  moreover,  than  instead  of  four  beds 
of  coal,  which  were  all  of  which  we  were  aware  at  the 
time  of  writing  the  preceding  report,  there  are  probably 
110  less  than  five  or  six  distinct  beds  within  a  distance 
of  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile,  measured  at  right  an- 
gles to  their  strike,  all  of  which  are  likely  to  prove 
workable  and  more  or  less  valuable,  while  one  of  them, 
at  least,  shows  a  thickness  of  about  nine  feet  of  good 
solid  coal  in  what  is  to  all  practical  intents  and  purposes 
a  single  body. 


120  COAL  MINES. 

"We  say  that  there  are  probably  no  less  than  five  or 
six  distinct  beds.  There  may  be  more.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  in  a  country  so  densely  timbered  as  this, 
and  where  the  exposures  of  the  strata  are  so  rare,  ex- 
cepting along  the  banks  of  the  creeks,  whose  beds  are 
also  filled  with  fallen  logs,  etc.,  it  is  difficult  to  make 
examinations  so  complete  as  might  be  desired.  And  it  is 
perhaps  possible  that  some  of  these  appearances  may  be 
due  to  faults  or  flexures  causing  the  same  beds  to  re- 
appear with  perhaps  slightly  varied  character  at  different 
points  not  in  the  same  line  of  strike.  But  no  evidence 
of  any  such  dislocations  has  yet  been  seen ;  while  the 
perfect  parallelism  of  the  beds  themselves,  and  the  uni- 
formity in  strike  and  dip  of  the  inclosing  strata  wher- 
ever seen,  speak  very  strongly  against  the  probability 
of  the  existence  of  faults  of  such  magnitude,  or  flexures 
of  such  a  kind,  as  would  be  necessary  in  order  to  ac- 
count in  this  way  for  the  positions  in  which  the  coal  is 
seen. 

"It  is  certain,  then,  that  the  facts  at  present  warrant, 
and  we  believe  that  developments  in  the  future  will  jus- 
tify, the  probabilities  as  stated  above.  And  if  this  be 
the  case,  it  will  not  be  easy  to  over-estimate  the  future 
importance  of  the  Seattle  coal  field  to  the  commercial 
and  productive  interests  of  the  Pacific  Coast;  notwith- 
standing the  heavy  outlay  which  will  be  required  to 
open  the  mines  upon  a  proper  scale,  and  to  put  the  coal 
in  the  market." 

I  have  been  thus  copious  in  my  extracts  from  these 
old  reports  and  notes  of  1868,  for  two  reasons :  First, 
because  they  present  as  clear  and  concise  an  outline  of 
the  early  discoveries  at  the  Seattle  mines  as  it  would  be 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  121 

possible  for  me  to  compile  to-day;  and  second,  because 
I  consider  it  an  act  of  justice  to  Mr.  Blake  himself  to 
show  that  he  appreciated,  at  a  time  when  others  refused 
to  recognize,  the  great  value  of  the  Seattle  coal  field. 

I  recollect  that  in  1868  it  was  Mr.  Blake's  private 
opinion  that,  with  adequate  means  to  handle  these  mines 
to  the  best  advantage,  it  would  be  possible  to  lay  the 
coal  from  them  alongside  the  wharves  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, at  a  total  cost  for  mining  and  transportation, 
which  should  not  exceed  five  dollars  ($5.00)  per  ton  iii 
gold  coin.  And  I  recollect  also  that  this  opinion  was 
then  ridiculed  as  the  height  of  absurdity.  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  my  own  opinion  in  1877  is,  that, 
with  adequate  means  and  proper  management,  the  same 
thing  can  be  accomplished  at  a  cost  of  four  dollars  and 
fifty  cents  ($4.50)  per  ton  in  gold  coin. 

I  proceed  now  to  describe  the  later  developments  of 
the  Seattle  Coal  and  Transportation  Company.  In 
1871,  certain  of  the  beds  had  been  discovered  close  to 
the  surface  of  the  ground  at  a  point  considerably  to  the 
west  of  the  most  westerly  point  where  they  had  yet  been 
actually  proven  to  exist  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Blake's  ex- 
aminations in  1868.  Work  was  therefore  commenced 
at  a  point  about  six  hundred  feet  west  and  some  two 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  north  of  the  centre  of  section  27, 
by  starting  two  tunnels  in  an  easterly  direction  into 
the  hill.  These  two  tunnels  were  at  about  the  same 
level,  and  were  about  ninety  feet  apart  horizontally, 
each  of  them  being  driven  in  directly  upon  the  course 
of  a  bed  of  coal.  Each  tunnel,  therefore,  answered  as  a 
gangway  through  which  to  work  and  extract  the  coal. 
The  southern  tunnel  upon  the  lower  bed  was  designated 


122  COAL  MINES. 

as  "Tunnel  No.  1,"  and  the  northern  one  upon  the 
upper  bed  as  "Tunnel  No.  2." 

When  Mr.  Blake  again  visited  the  property  in  1873, 
he  found  "Tunnel  No.  1,"  to  be  already  about  twenty- 
four  hundred  feet  long,  and  "Tunnel  No.  2,"  about  six- 
teen hundred  feet,  while  a  third  one  called  "No.  3," 
had  also  been  started  and  driven  a  short  distance  upon 
a  bed  still  farther  north.  It  appears  also,  that  by  this 
time,  some  additional  prospecting  had  been  done  at 
Coal  Creek,  whereby  the  beds  or  some  of  them  were 
better  exposed  here  than  they  were  in  1868,  for  he  now 
gives  the  following  description  of  five  beds  at  the  creek, 
beginning  with  the  lowest: 

"No.  1.  As  nearly  as  could  be  measured,  for  it  is  not 
yet  opened  up,  is  fifteen  feet  in  thickness. 

"No.  2.  The  point  of  its  intersection  with  Coal  Creek 
was  not  known  previous  to  this  visit,  when  in  company 
with  the  superintendent  and  foreman  of  the  mine,  the 
bed  was  found,  but  no  measurement  of  it  could  be  made 
on  account  of  the  overlying  gravel. 

"No.  3.  Is  opened  by  a  tunnel  driven  in  westerly 
from  the  creek  about  one  hundred  feet,  showing  a  per- 
fect bed  of  very  compact,  clean,  bright  coal,  eleven  feet 
in  thickness. 

"No.  4.  Is  not  opened,  but  a  section  in  the  bank  ad- 
joining Coal  Creek  shows  five  feet  of  clean  coal  of  most 
excellent  quality. 

"No.  5  is  opened  by  a  tunnel  driven  in  as  on  No.  3 
for  a  short  distance  westerly  on  its  course.  There  are 
two  seams,  giving  in  the  aggregate  seven  feet  of  clear 
coal,  separated  by  a  clay  streak  two  to  four  inches  thick. 
This  streak  of  clay  will  serve  to  facilitate  mining." 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  123 

It  is  here  evident  that  what  he  now  calls  "No.  3,"  is 
th,e  same  bed  which  in  1868  he  calls  the  "nine-foot 
bed,"  but  which  it  now  appears  will  yield  eleven  feet  of 
coal  instead  of  nine.  It  also  appears  that  "No.  4,"  and 
"No.  5,"  are  the  middle  and  upper  ones  of  the  three 
beds  first  described  at  this  locality,  but  both  of  them 
looking  decidedly  better  in  1873  than  they  did  in  1868; 
while  "No.  1"  and  "No.  2"  are  underlying  beds  further 
south. 

He  then  gives  the  following  table,  showing  the  thick- 
ness of  the  coal  in  the  beds  at  both  ends  of  the  prop- 
erty, and  the  probable  aggregate  thickness  of  coal  in 
all  the  beds,  and  remarks  at  the  same  time,  that  it  will 
be  seen  from  this  table  that  the  beds  diminish  in  thick- 
ness going  west,  or  increase  going  east. 


Thickness  at  Intersec-  Thickness  at  Western 

tion  with  Goal  Creek.  End  of  Property. 


No.  1 15  feet  10  feet  (?)  estimated. 

"2 5  "  (?)        5    " 

"3 11  "  5    "  6  inches. 

"4 5  "  3    " 

"5..  .   7  "  5   " 


Totals 43  feet.         28  feet,  6  inches. 

From  this  table  it  is  evident,  that  at  the  time  when  it 
was  written,  Mr.  Blake  supposed  the  eleven-foot  bed  at 
Coal  Creek  to  be  identical  with  that  bed  at  the  western 
end  of  the  property,  which  is  five  and  one  half  feet 
thick,  and  upon  which  "Tunnel  No.  2"  was  driven; 
while  the  underlying  five-foot  bed  upon  which  "Tunnel 
No.  1"  was  driven  was  supposed  to  be  identical  with  the 
bed  designated  "No.  2"  at  Coal  Creek. 


124  COAL  MINES. 

Now  the  actual  facts  of  the  case,  as  subsequently 
proven  by  further  underground  work,  are  as  follows: 
In  driving  the  tunnels  eastward  into  the  bill,  the  ninety 
feet  of  level  distance,  involving  with  the  dip  of  38°  an 
actual  thickness  of  about  fifty-five  feet  of  solid  sand- 
stone between  the  two  beds  at  the  mouths  of  the  tun- 
nels, grows  gradually  thinner  and  thinner,  until,  at  the 
distance  of  about  thirty-one  hundred  feet,  it  disappears 
altogether,  and  these  two  coal  beds  unite  their  aggre- 
gate thickness  in  one  magnificent  bed,  which  thence- 
forth yields  from  ten  to  eleven  feet  of  good,  clean  solid 
coal. 

This,  then,  is  the  eleven-foot  bed  which  shows  on 
Coal  Creek;  and  this  fact,  together  with  some  other 
developments  which  have  been  made  since  1873,  render 
it  far  less  probable  than  it  then  seemed,  that  the  beds 
diminish  much  in  thickness  as  they  go  west. 

The  direction  of  these  tunnels  is  about  S.  77J°  E. 
(true  coarse),  and  the  average  dip  of  the  beds  has 
proven  to  be  about  38°  to  the  north. 

My  own  first  visit  to  this  locality  was  in  January, 
1875,  which  was  still  some  time  before  the  two  beds 
came  together  in  the  workings.  So  far  as  the  workings 
then  extended,  the  bed  of  tunnel  No.  1  preserved  an 
average  thickness  of  just  about  five  feet,  and  that  of 
tunnel  No.  2  of  about  five  feet  and  a  half.  No.  2  was 
a  little  the  cleaner  of  the  two  beds,  containing  no  slate 
or  "bone"  whatever,  except  a  single  little  streak  of  soft 
slate  an  inch  or  two  in  thickness  in  the  centre,  which 
served  admirably  for  a  "mining."  In  No.  1,  a  little 
slate  might  be  seen  here  and  there,  somewhat  irregu- 
larly distributed;  but  its  quantity  was  very  small,  and 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  125 

tlie  coal  itself  was  said  to  be  generally  a  little  harder 
than  that  from  No.  2.  The  roof  and  floor  of  both  the 
beds  were  of  good  solid  sandstone,  and  hardly  any 
timbering  was  required  in  the  mine.  In  No.  1,  however, 
the  roof  and  floor  were  not  quite  so  regular  and  smooth 
as  they  were  in  No.  2,  and  the  roof  was  not  so  strong, 
being  a  somewhat  more  micaceous  sandstone,  and  ex- 
hibiting rather  more  tendency  to  a  slaty  structure. 

They  were,  both  of  them,  beautiful  beds  to  work. 
Their  thickness  was  good;  their  dip  was  right;  their 
roofs  and  floors  good;  there  were  no  faults;  their  coal 
itself  was  good  and  hard  and  clean;  there  was  no  pump- 
ing nor  hoisting,  and  hardly  any  timbering  was  needed. 
How  much  every  one  of  these  items  means  in  its  bear- 
ings on  the  unavoidable  cost  of  mining,  will  be  best 
understood  by  those  who  have  had  most  experience  in 
working  beds  of  a  different  character,  such,  for  example, 
as  those  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines.  But  since  the  union 
of  the  two  in  one  clean,  solid  bed  eleven  feet  in  thick- 
ness, the  conditions  for  cheap  mining  are  even  more  fa- 
vorable than  they  were  before,  and  there  is  not,  to-day, 
a  coal  mine  in  North  America,  west  of  the  Kocky 
Mountains,  which  for  cheapness  of  mining,  can  compare 
with  this  magnificent  bed. 

In  December,  1876,  the  total  length  of  the  gangway 
here  was  four  thousand  eight  hundred  and  seventy  feet, 
or,  in  other  words,  it  was  already  driven  seven  hundred 
and  seventy  feet  beyond  the  point  where  the  two  beds 
united;  and  the  average  height  of  the  "  lift"  above  the 
level  of  this  gangway  was  between  five  hundred  and  six 
hundred  feet. 

From  a  point  in  this  gangway  about  seventy-five  feet 


126  COAL  MINES. 

east  of  where  the  two  beds  united,  a  tunnel  has  been 
started  and  already  driven  (in  February,  1877),  one 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  or  more  in  a  southerly  direc- 
tion at  right  angles  to  the  strike,  in  order  to  cut  two 
other  beds,  which  are  already  known  to  exist  in  this 
direction.  It  is  expected  to  reach  the  first  of  these  two 
beds,  called  the  "Clarence  Bagley  Vein,"  or  the  "  Sev- 
enteen-foot Vein,"  within  a  distance  of  about  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet;  and  the  other  one,  known  as  the 
"  Seven-foot  Vein,"  at  a  point  about  seventy -five  feet  fur- 
ther south.  Both  these  beds  have  been  traced  for  a  long 
distance  along  the  hill-tops  by  the  sinking  of  little  pits 
at  intervals  along  their  line  of  outcrop.  The  "Seven- 
teen-foot Vein"  is,  as  its  name  implies,  about  seventeen 
feet  in  thickness,  of  which  at  least  seven  feet  of  the 
lower  part  is  said  to  be  clean  and  good.  The  upper 
portion  of  the  bed  contains  some  "bone,"  but  not  so 
much  but  what  Mr.  Shattuck,  the  manager  of  the  mine, 
thinks  that  it  will  all  be  workable.  The  "Seven-foot 
bed"  is  from  six  and  a  half  to  seven  feet  thick,  and  is 
said  to  be  all  clean,  hard  coal,  with  the  exception  of  a 
single  streak  of  clay  three  inches  thick,  about  two  feet 
above  the  bottom  of  the  bed. 

About  one  hundred  and  fifteen  feet  to  the  north  from 
the  mouth  of  "Tunnel  No.  2"  is  the  mouth  of  "Tunnel 
No.  3,"  which  has  been  driven  east  about  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  feet  upon  a  bed  of  coal  some  five  or  six 
feet  in  thickness,  which  proved,  however,  too  dirty  and 
slaty  to  pay  to  work.  But  again,  about  two  hundred 
and  eighty -five  feet  further  north  comes  another  bed 
known  as  "No.  4."  Upon  this  bed  "Tunnel  No.  4"  has 
been  driven  easterly  some  three  hundred  and  fifty  to 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  127 

four  hundred  feet,  but  no  coal  has  yet  been  mined  here. 
The  bed,  however,  proves  to  average  about  four  and  a 
half  feet  thick,  all  clean,  splendid  coal,  of  a  quality  a 
little  superior  to  that  from  the  eleven-foot  bed. 

It  thus  appears  that  in  the  western  portion  of  this 
company's  property,  and  near  the  centre  of  section  27, 
there  are  now  known  to  exist  not  less  than  six  beds  of 
coal,  only  one  of  which  is  too  poor  in  quality  to  pay  for 
working,  while  the  remaining  five  will  yield  an  aggre- 
gate thickness  of  certainly  not  less  than  twenty-seven  or 
twenty-eight,  and  probably  from  thirty  to  thirty-five  feet 
of  good  marketable  coal.  Two  out  of  the  five  workable 
beds  unite,  moreover,  in  going  east,  to  form  the  eleven- 
foot  bed. 

One  of  the  chief  disadvantages  under  which  this  com- 
pany has  been  compelled  to  labor  has,  of  course,  been 
the  cost  of  its  transportation.  The  present  route,  by 
which  their  coal  is  transported  from  the  mines  to  Seat- 
tle, was  comparatively  a  cheap  one  to  build,  as  it  involves 
only  between  four  and  five  miles  of  railroad  altogether, 
the  rest  of  the  transit  being  by  water;  but  it  is  a  very 
expensive  route  to  operate,  and  it  is  now  proposed  to  do 
away  with  it. 

A  narrow-gauge  railroad,  as  already  described,  has 
now  been  built  from  Seattle  up  the  valley  of  the  Duwa- 
misli  Eiver  to  the  Renton  mine,  a  distance  of  about 
thirteen  miles.  From  the  latter  point,  an  additional 
five  or  six  miles  of  road  is  all  that  is  required  to  reach  the 
mines  of  the  Seattle  Coal  and  Transportation  Company, 
and  thus  give  them  an  all-rail  line  to  Seattle,  around  the 
southern  end  of  Lake  Washington,  whose  total  length 
will  be  but  three  or  four  miles  greater  than  is  that  of 


128  COAL  MINES. 

their  present  tedious  and  complex  line.     It  is  intended 
to  complete  this  connection  during  the  current  year. 

PUYALLUP  CAKING  COAL. 

Besides  the  locality  already  described  where  caking 
coal  is  known  to  exist  near  Lake  Whatcom,  back  of 
Bellingham  Bay,  there  are  numerous  other  localities  in 
Washington  Territory  at  some  distance  back  from  the 
coast,  but  more  particularly  along  and  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  Skagit  and  Puyallup  rivers,  where  more  or  less 
caking  coal  of  good  quality  has  been  found.  It  is  also 
probably  true,  that  a  little  anthracite  has  been  found  at 
several  points  within  the  Territory.  Whether  any  an- 
thracite exists  however,  which  can  be  made  commer- 
cially available,  I  do  not  know,  but  do  not  think  it 
probable  that  it  does. 

With  reference  to  the  caking  coal  upon  the  Skagit 
river,  I  have  no  information  worth  publishing  beyond 
the  fact  that  some  samples  of  it  are  certainly  of  good 
quality. 

But  along  the  Puyallup  river  and  its  branches,  in 
townships  18  and  19,  north,  range  6  east,  Willamette 
Meridian,  there  is  a  considerable  field  of  caking  coal, 
some  of  which  at  least  is  of  most  excellent  quality. 
This  field  was  visited  in  April,  1875,  by  Mr.  T.  A. 
Blake,  who,  on  his  return,  brought  with  him  about  a 
ton  of  the  coal  to  San  Francisco.  This  coal  was  tested 
for  blacksmithing  purposes,  and  at  the  San  Francisco 
Gas  Works  for  gas.  It  proved  to  be  a  most  excellent 
blacksmith  coal,  and  Mr.  Blake  furnishes  me  the  follow- 
ing result  of  the  test  at  the  Gas  Works: 


WASHINGTON  TERRITORY.  129 

"Two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  coal,  coarse  and 
fine  without  selection,  yielded  over  ninety-two  hundred 
cubic  feet  of  gas  of  fifteen-candle  power  per  ton,  and 
left  one  hundred  and  eighty-two  pounds  of  coke  of 
finest  quality.  A  test  of  the  gas  for  sulphuretted  hy- 
drogen, with  paper  dipped  in  solution  of  acetate  of  lead, 
showed  that  it  contained  less  sulphur  without  purifica- 
tion than  the  Company's  gas,  made  from  a  mixture  of 
Australian  and  Nanaimo  coal,  contained  after  purifica- 
tion." 

The  bed  from  which  this  coal  was  taken  was  about 
six  feet  thick  and  contained  a  streak  of  slate  in  the 
middle  of  the  bed  about  fifteen  inches  thick.  Other 
beds  are  reported  to  exist  from  three  to  fifteen  feet  in 
thickness.  It  is  also  reported  that  some  anthracite  has 
been  found  in  this  vicinity. 

What  the  commercial  value  of  this  coal  field  may 
prove  to  be  is  yet  a  very  doubtful  question,  for  Mr. 
Blake  states  that  the  beds  where  he  saw  them,  "will 
certainly  be  found  to  be  badly  broken  up,"  i.  'e.  with 
faults  and  other  disturbances.  The  problem  is,  how- 
ever, in  a  fair  way  of  being  solved  since  the  Northern 
Pacific  Railroad  Company  are  already  courageously  en- 
gaged in  building  a  branch  railroad  up  the  valley  of 
the  Puyallup  river  in  order  to  reach  this  coal. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 


COST  OF  PEODUCTION  AT  MT.  DIABLO  MINES. 

The  cost  of  mining  and  transporting  the  Mt.  Diablo 
coal  has  varied  very  greatly,  not  only  between  the  dif- 
ferent mines,  but  also  at  different  times  and  under  vary- 
ing circumstances  for  the  same  mine.  The  differences 
in  this  respect  have  been  so  great,  indeed,  that  any 
single  statement  of  the  actual  cost  for  any  particular 
mine  at  any  definite  time  would  be  of  no  value  whatever 
as  an  index  of  the  cost  at  the  same  time  for  a  different 
mine,  or  for  the  same  mine  at  a  different  time.  This 
fact  is  well  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  Black  Dia- 
mond Company.  At  their  mines,  the  monthly  averages 
of  the  cost  per  ton  for  labor  alone  in  mining  the  coal 
and  putting  it  into  the  bunkers  at  the  mines,  exclusive 
of  the  cost  of  timber  and  all  other  supplies,  have  ranged 
at  different  times  since  1867  from  a  minimum  of  about 
two  dollars  and  thirty-seven  cents  to  a  maximum  of 
very  nearly  four  dollars;  or  say,  including  supplies, 
from  about  two  dollars  and  seventy -five  cents  to  four 
dollars  and  fifty  cents,  or  a  little  more,  per  ton.  Within 
the  same  time,  the  monthly  averages  of  the  cost  of  the 
railroad  transportation  from  the  mines  to  the  landing 


MISCELLANEOUS.  131 

have  ranged  from  twenty-five  or  thirty  cents  to  over  one 
dollar  per  ton;  while  the  cost  also  of  the  water  trans- 
portation from  the  landing  to  San  Francisco  has  varied 
between  thirty-seven  cents  and  one  dollar  and  twenty- 
five  cents  per  ton. 

But  then,  again,  these  three  items  of  cost  for  mining, 
for  land  transportation,  and  for  water  transportation 
have  rarely  or  never  reached  either  their  maxima  or 
their  minima  values  simultaneously,  and  consequently 
the  actual  highest  or  lowest  figures  of  total  cost  for  the 
mining,  transportation,  and  delivery  of  the  Mt.  Diablo 
coal  at  any  particular  time  would  not  be  obtained  by 
adding  together  separately  either  the  highest  or  the 
lowest  of  the  figures  given  above. 

This  total  cost,  however,  has  varied  at  different  times 
since  1866,  from  a  minimum  of  about  five  dollars,  or 
possibly  a  little  less,  to  a  maximum  of  somewhere  be- 
tween six  dollars  and  fifty  cents  and  seven  dollars  per 
ton.  But  for  a  general  estimate  of  the  total  average 
cost  of  all  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  which  has  ever  been  sent 
to  market,  the  sum  of  five  dollars  and  seventy-five  dol- 
lars per  ton  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  approximation. 

It  may  also  be  stated  in  this  connection,  that  the 
average  loss  of  coal  in  the  pillars  and  in  waste  of  one 
kind  and  another  in  the  working  of  the  Mt.  Diablo 
mines  has  been,  as  nearly  as  it  can  be  estimated,  not 
far  from  twenty-five  per  cent.  In  other  words,  only 
about  three-fourths  of  the  coal  which  the  beds  contained 
has  been  extracted  and  utilized  throughout  the  whole 
extent  of  the  works. 


132  COAL  MINES. 

STATISTICS  OF  PRODUCTION  AND  TRADE. 

In  order  to  show  as  nearly  as  may  be  the  growth  and 
magnitude  of  the  coal  production  and  trade  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  up  to  the  present  time,  I  first  present  the  follow- 
ing table  which  is  here  reprinted  from  the  columns  of 
the  San  Francisco  Commercial  Herald  and  Market  Re- 
view for  January  18,  1877,  without  further  change  than 
the  omission  of  some  insignificant  items  from  Queen 
Charlotte's  Island,  Sitka,  Saghalien,  Fuca  Straits  "and 
Japan,  which  aggregate  altogether  only  fifteen  hundred 
and  sixty-four  tons : 


H      00  X>  00  00  00  OO  OC  OO  00  00  OO  OO  GO  00  00  00  00 


134  COAL  MINES. 

This  table  requires,  however,  a  few  explanatory  re- 
marks. In  the  first  place,  with  reference  to  all  the  coal 
which  comes  here  by  sea  from  outside  the  Golden  Gate, 
i.  e.,  to  all  the  coed  which  arrives  here,  except  the  Mt.  Diablo 
and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  figures  in  this  table  have 
been  generally  obtained  by  taking  the  reports  of  the 
vessels  on  their  arrival,  and  before  discharging  as  to 
the  quantity  of  coal  they  had  on  board;  and  these  re- 
ports vary  slightly  in  almost  every  cargo  from  the 
amount  as  actually  weighed  when  the  vessel  comes  to 
be  discharged.  These  differences  are  of  course  small, 
and  are  sometimes  in  one  direction  and  sometimes  in 
the  other.  But  on  the  average,  and  in  the  long  run,  it 
is  probable  that  the  first  reports  are  slightly  in  excess 
of  the  actual  quantities  as  weighed. 

In  the  second  place,  it  will  be  noticed  that  this  table 
purports  to  give  only  the  "receipts  of  coal  at  San  Fran- 
cisco," and  this  is  what  it  actually  does  give  with  a  good 
degree  of  accuracy  for  all  the  other  coals  excepting  that 
from  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines. 

But  the  figures  which  it  gives  for  these  mines  do  not 
represent  either  the  actual  "  receipts  at  San  Francisco," 
or  the  total  product  of  the  mines.  What  do  they  repre- 
sent, with  a  fair  approach  to  accuracy,  is  the  total  quan- 
tity which  has  been  shipped  away  from  the  mines.  There 
is,  and  always  has  been,  a  large  proportion  of  the  pro- 
duct of  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines  which  has  been  delivered 
on  board  of  steamers  and  other  vessels  at  Pitts- 
burg  and  New  York  landings,  and  which  has  been 
been  partly  burned  in  steamers  on  the  bay  and  rivers, 
and  partly  sent  direct  to  Sacramento,  Stockton,  Yallejo, 
and  other  places,  without  ever  coming  to  San  Francisco; 


MISCELLANEOUS.  135 

and  all  the  coal  so  disposed  of  is  included  in  those 
figures.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  do  not  include  the 
large  item  of  consumption  at  and  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  the  mines  themselves. 

With  reference  to  the  mines  of  Oregon  and  Washing- 
ton Territory,  the  figures  in  this  table,  being  the 
receipts  at  San  Francisco,  represent  pretty  nearly  niue- 
tenths  of  the  total  production  of  the  mines,  the  aggre- 
gate consumption  at  and  in  the  vicinity  of  the  mines, 
and  also  upon  ocean  steamers,  being  not  far  from  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  production. 

In  the  case  of  the  Vancouver  Island  mines,  the  fig- 
ures probably  do  not  represent  quite  so  large  a  propor- 
tion as  nine-tenths  of  the  production;  for,  besides  the 
town  of  Victoria  and  some  smaller  settlements,  which 
draw  their  supplies  almost  entirely  from  these  mines, 
the  quantity  of  Vancouver  Island  coal  which  has  been 
burned  on  ocean  steamers  is  considerably  larger  than 
of  Washington  Territory,  or  of  Oregon  coal. 

With  these  explanations,  the  above  table  may  be 
taken,  except  in  the  case  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  mines,  for 
as  good  a  general  exhibit  of  the  statistics  of  the  coal 
production  and  coal  trade  of  the  Pacific  Coast  from  1860 
to  1876,  inclusive,  as  it  is  possible  now  to  compile. 

But,  with  reference  to  the  Mt.  Diablo*  mines,  having 
had  better  facilities  than  any  mere  statistician  has  had 
for  knowing  the  truth  about  the  mines  and  their  opera- 
tions, I  have  compiled  the  following  table,  which,  with 
the  accompanying  explanations  and  remarks,  may  be 
relied  upon  as  furnishing  a  more  accurate  statement, 
and  a  closer  approximation  to  the  total  production  of 
these  mines  than  has  ever  yet  been  published,  or  than 


136 


CO  A  L  MINES. 


is  likely  to  be  compiled  or  published  hereafter,  for  the 
first  sixteen  years  of  their  existence. 

It  should  be  mentioned  that  in  this  table,  as  well  as 
in  the  preceding  one,  all  the  figures  are  in  tons  of 
two  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty  pounds  avoir- 
dupois : 


1 

Black 
Diamond. 

d 
6 

d 

Pittsburg. 

Eureka. 

Independ- 
ent. 

a 

Central  (ap- 
proximate 
only). 

Estimated  1 
additional  1 
product. 

Total  pro- 
duction. 

1861 

1,370 

5  2oO 

6  620 

1862 

10  672 

1°  728 

23  400 

1863 

14,232 

28  968 

43  200 

1864 

12,421 



38,279 

50,700 

1865 

14.491 

11,187 

34  852 

60  530 

1866 

16,009 

14,224 

9,599 

7,391 

15  678 

65 

21  054 

84  020 

1867 
1868 

38,368 
70.100 

24,167 
21.641 

21,909 
22,920 

10,908 
15,815 

14,338 

3,000 
3  OOit 

12.000 
10  200 

124,690 
143  676 

1869 

79,548 

17,274 

27  938 

16  945 

4  72Q 

10  800 

157  234 

1870 

7»,«C8 

20,  563 

23,958 

10246 

5  055 

11  400 

141  890 

1871 

75,536 

17.V09 

22,339 

18,194 

7  215 

12,000 

152,493 

1872 

103,008 

21,494 

26,714 

16  831 

9  612 

1H  200 

190  859 

1873 

104.596 

22,600 

32,36-2 

4  075 

8,578 

14  400 

186  611 

1874 

117.804 

30,002 

43  546 

9  000 

15  000 

215  352 

1875 

83,645 

26365 

33,628 

8  000 

15  000 

166  638 

1876 

63,048 

24,000 

21  801 

3  000 

16  200 

128  049 

875,516 

250,726 

286,714 

100,405 

30,016 

65 

61,189 

271,331 

1,875,962 

In  the  column  here  headed  "Black  Diamond"  there 
is  given,  from  the  books  of  the  Black  Diamond  Coal 
Company,  the  total  production  of  their  mines,  except- 
ing the  amounj;  consumed  for  hoisting  and  pumping 
under  the  boilers  at  the  mines.  It  includes  the  local 
sales  by  the  superintendents  at  the  mines  and  at  the 
lauding,  and  the  consumption  by  the  locomotives  on 
their  railroad,  as  well  as  by  their  tug  upon  the  river 
and  bay. 

The  rest  of  the  mines  named  in  this  table,  with  the 
exception  of  the  "Central,"  are  all  located  at  Somers- 
ville. 


MISCELLANEOUS.  137 

The  first  shipments  of  coal  from  the  Mt.  t)iablo  mines 
were  in  1861,  and  besides  the  old  companies  at  Norton- 
ville,  which  were  all  afterwards  purchased  by  the  Black 
Diamond  Company,  and  whose  product  is  therefore  in- 
cluded in  the  column  headed  " Black  Diamond,"  several 
of  the  Somersville  companies  also  began  to  ship  coal  in 
the  same  year,  all  the  coal  at  this  time  and  for  several  years 
afterwards  being  hauled  to  the  landings  by  teams.  The 
Pittsburg  railroad  first  began  to  carry  coal  from  Som- 
ersville in  March,  1866,  and  with  the  single  exception 
of  the  Union  Mine  from  the  beginning  of  1865,  the  best 
information  which  can  now  be  obtained  respecting  the 
production  of  the  Somersville  mines  prior  to  the  com- 
pletion of  this  railroad  must  be  gleaned  from  the  news- 
paper statistics,  the  old  account  books  of  these  various 
companies,  some  of  which  were  very  loosely  kept  in  the 
first  place,  having  been  long  ago  scattered  about,  and 
many  of  them  destroyed. 

In  the  column  headed  "Union,"  the  production  of 
that  mine  for  the  years  1865  and  1866  is  given  from  the 
books  of  the  Union  Coal  Company.  The  figures  given 
for  that  mine  subsequent  to  1866,  together  with  all  the 
figures  given  for  the  Pittsburg,  the  Eureka,  the  Inde- 
pendent and  the  Manhattan  Coal  Companies,  are  from 
the  books  of  the  Pittsburg  Railroad  Company,  and 
show  the  quantities  transported  over  the  railroad  from 
the  different  mines  respectively.  These  quantities,  how- 
ever, do  not  represent  the  total  production  of  the  mines 
inasmuch  as  they  do  not  include,  first,  the  local  sales  at 
Somersville  and  at  Pittsburg  Landing ;  second,  the 
quantity  consumed  by  the  locomotives  on  the  Pittsburg 
railroad,  and  third,  the  consumption  under  the  boilers 


138  COAL  MINES. 

for  pumping  and  hoisting  at  the  various  mines  of  Som- 
ersville.  The  Manhattan  Company  shipped  no  coal  after 
1866;  the  Independent  Company  shipped  none  after 
1867;  and  the  Eureka  Company  none  after  1873.  The 
Union  mine  was  also  closed  and  abandoned  about  the 
first  of  December,  1876.  The  Central  mine  stopped 
work  in  the  early  part  of  the  year  1876. 

In  the  column  headed  "Central  (approximate  only)," 
there  is  given,  as  nearly  as  it  can  now  be  ascertained, 
the  product  of  the  Central  mine.  The  figures  in  this 
column  for  the  years  1869  and  1870  are  accurate  and 
from  the  books.  For  the  remaining  years  they  are  esti- 
mates based  upon  the  best  information  obtainable, 
and  are  "approximate  only." 

The  figures  in  the  column  headed  "Estimated  Addi- 
tional Product"  are  estimates  intended  to  cover  the 
following  items:  First.  The  total  production  from  1861 
to  1864,  inclusive,  of  all  the  mines  except  the  Black 
Diamond,  together  with  the  local  sales  and  consump- 
tion under  boilers  for  those  years  at  the  mines  of  that 
company.  Second.  For  1865,  the  total  production  of  all 
the  mines  except  the  Black  Diamond  and  the  Union, 
together  with  the  local  sales  and  consumption  at  the 
mines  of  those  two  companies.  Third.  For  1866,  the 
quantity  hauled  by  teams  in  the  first  three  months  of 
that  year  from  all  the  Somersville  mines  except  the 
Union,  the  local  sales  at  Somersville,  the  consumption 
by  the  locomotives  of  the  Pittsburg  railroad,  and  the 
consumption  under  the  boilers  at  all  the  mines;  also, 
the  production  in  that  year  of  the  San  Francisco,  the 
Peacock,  the  Central,  and  the  Teutonia  mines.  Fourth. 
From  1867  to  1876,  inclusive,  the  consumption  under 


MISCELLANEOUS.  139 

boilers  at  all  the  mines,  the  local  sales  at  Somersville 
-and  Pittsburg  Landing,  the  consumption  by  locomotives 
on  the  Pittsburg  railroad,  and  the  total  product  of  all 
mines  other  than  those  specified  in  the  table. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  figures  in  this  column  from 
1861  to  1866,  inclusive,  are  such  as  to  make  the  total 
production  for  those  years  equal  to  the  amounts  'given 
for  the  same  years  in  the  table  of  the  Commercial 
Herald  and  Market  Review.  I  have  made  them  so,  be- 
cause I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  for  these  six  years 
during  which  no  very  accurate  accounts  were  kept,  the 
figures  in  that  table,  though  purporting  to  show  only  the 
"receipts  at  San  Francisco,"  are,  nevertheless,  in  all 
probability,  large  enough  to  cover  the  whole  product  of 
the  mines. 

In  the  estimate  of  sixteen  thousand  two  hundred 
tons  for  1876,  there  is  included  the  product  of  the  Em- 
pire mine  for  that  year,  which,  I  am  informed  by  one 
of  its  owners,  was  about  three  thousand  tons.  With 
this  single  exception,  more  than  nine-tenths  of  all  the 
quantities  given  in  this  column  of  estimates  for  the  ten 
years  subsequent  to  1866,  were  burned  under  the  boilers 
at  the  mines  for  pumping  and  hoisting  purposes,  the 
items  of  local  sales  and  consumption  on  the  railroad 
being  comparatively  very  small.  The  estimates  are 
based  upon  a  good  general  knowledge  of  the  charac- 
ter and  comparative  magnitude  of  the  operations  at 
the  different  mines,  and  upon  the  fact  that  for  several 
years  past,  although  no  accurate  account  of  it  has  been 
kept,  the  consumption  beneath  the  boilers  at  the  mines 
of  the  Black  Diamond  Company  alone  is  known  to  have 
averaged  not  far  from  six  hundred  tons  per  month. 


140 


COAL  MINES. 


RELATIVE  VALUES  OF  DIFFERENT  COALS. 

As  the  proximate  analysis  of  a  coal  does  not  give  the 
means  of  computing  its  calorific  power,  and  as  it  fur- 
nishes at  best  but  an  imperfect  means  of  estimating  its 
practical  value,  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  re- 
produce here  a  table  of  hitherto  published  analyses  of 
Pacific  Coast  coals.  Those  who  are  interested  in  these 
analyses  will  find  them  in  the  State  Geological  Survey 
Report  —  Geology  of  California,  vol.  1,  p.  30,  and  in 
a  table  compiled  by  Mr.  Archibald  R.  Marvine,  in 
the  Annual  Report  for  1873,  of  the  United  States 
Geological  and  Geographical  Survey  of  the  Territories, 
by  F.  V.  Hay  den,  pp.  113,  114.  I  will  only  present 
here  two  hitherto  unpublished  proximate  analyses  of 
Seattle  coal,  of  which  No.  1  was  made  for  Goodyear  & 
Blake,  by  Falkenau  &  Hanks,  in  April,  1868;  and  No. 
2  has  been  furnished  me  by  the  President  of  the  Seattle 
Coal  and  Transportation  Company,  and  was  made  by 
Mr.  H.  G.  Hanks,  in  May,  1875.  They  are  as  follows: 


No. 

Water. 

Combustible 
bituminous 
substances. 

Fixed 
Carbon. 

Ash. 

Sulphur. 

Total. 

1 

11.66 

35.49 

45.98 

6.44 

0.43 

100.00 

2 

6.70 

38.32 

47.99 

6.49 

99.50 

Believing,  however,  that  the  results  of  careful  work- 
ing experiments  upon  a  large  scale,  with  reference  to 
the  relative  practical  values  of  the  various  coals  which 
come  to  this  market  for  steam  purposes,  would  possess 
no  little  general  interest  and  value,  I  have  endeavored 
to  gather  as  much  reliable  information  of  this  kind  as 


M ISC  EL  LA  NEO  US.  141 

it  was  possible  for  me  to  obtain.  In  this  direction  I 
Lave  not  succeeded  so  well  as  I  could  wish.  But  I  pre- 
sent the  best  information  which  I  have,  not  because  it 
is  satisfactory,  for  it  is  not,  but  because  it  is  all  which 
I  have  been  able  to  obtain,  and  because  I  believe  that 
such  as  it  is,  and  being  reliable  so  far  as  it  goes,  it  will 
not  be  without  interest. 

The  most  comprehensive  information  which  I  have 
upon  this  subject  is  embodied  in  the  following  table 
furnished  me  by  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Charles  Elliot, 
the  City  Superintendent  of  the  Spring  Yalley  Water 
Works,  and  giving  the  results  of  a  series  of  experiments 
made  at  the  pumping  works  of  the  Spring  Yalley  Water 
Company,  under  his  supervision  at  various  times,  ex- 
tending over  a  period  of  between  seven  and  eight  years. 

In  this  table,  the  first  column  shows  the  kind  of  coal 
employed.  The  second  column  shows  the  date,  i.  e., 
tlie  month  and  year,  and  in  a  few  cases  the  day  of  the 
month  of  the  experiment.  The  third  column  shows  the 
duration  of  the  experiment  in  all  cases  where  such  du- 
ration was  noted;  where  it  was  not  noted,  the  duration 
was  in  most  cases  a  single  day.  The  fourth  column 
shows  the  "duty"  performed;  i.  e.,  the  number  of  foot- 
pounds of  useful  mechanical  effect  produced  by  each 
hundred  pounds  of  coal;  or,  in  other  words,  as  stated  at 
the  head  of  the  column,  the  number  of  pounds  of  water 
raised  one  foot  high  by  the  combustion  of  each  hundred 
pounds  of  coal: 


142 


COAL  MINES. 


KIND  OF  COAL. 

Date  of 
Experiment. 

Duration  of 
Experiment. 

"  Duty.  ''i.e., 
No.  of  Ibs. 
raised  1  foot 
Ligh  by  each 
ll)0  fos.  of 
coal.  • 

Mt.  Diablo  (Eureka)  Screenings. 
Nanaimo  Coal  (V.  I.) 

June, 
July, 
Feb. 
Feb. 
May, 
June, 
August, 
!Sept. 
Sept. 
Nov. 
'Dec. 
Jan. 
May, 
June, 
June, 
June,  . 
Nov. 
Dec. 
Dec. 
April, 
June, 
July, 
Feb. 
June, 
Dec. 

1869 
1869 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1873 
1873 
1873 
1873 
1873 
1874 
1874 
1874 
]875 
1876 
1876 

23,678,000 
32.317,600 
24.850,450 
:{7,6iiO,000 
41  ',032,000 
3o,350,000 
37.036.184 
•25.588,636 
•2C..:::53,557 
Id.  657,  500 
•25,754,400 
•28,102,173 
23,000,000 
2'J,  018,600 
:;s,  215,700 
•2<).  (>;iO,  000 
:5(i,(i60.000 
40,880,000 
37,25-2,000 
34,300,000 
38,  000,000 
38,889,200 
38,681,250 
25.120,000 
36,596,000 

Mt   Diablo  (Pittsbur^ 

Anthracite  (Philadelphia)  

Sydney  Coal  (Australia) 



«         «             « 



Mt.  Diablo  (Union)  Screenings. 

(  4                      11                                <i                                          I  4 

Anthracite          .            .... 

1  week 
24  hours 
24  hours 
23  hours 

1  month 
24  hours 
1  day 

30  days 
7  days 
7  days 
1  week 
234  hours 

Mt.  Diablo  (Black  Diamond)  .  .  . 
"         "       (Union)  Screenings. 
"         "       Screenings.  
Bellingham  Bay,  Screenings.  .  .  . 
Sydney  Coal  (Australia)  
Seattle  Coal 

Svdnev  Coal  (Australia)  
WelslTCoal. 

«         <« 

ti         « 

Sydney  Coal  (Australia)  

<  <          «             « 

Mt.  Diablo  (Black  Diamond)  .  .  . 
\Velsh  Coal      

It  is  needless  to  remark  upon  one  fact  Avhich  all  well- 
informed  engineers  will  promptly  recognize  on  looking 
over  the  above  table,  viz.,  that  the  pumping  engines  of 
the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company  are  very  far  from 
being  up  to  the  standard  of  the  best  pumping  engines 
of  the  present  day,  so  long  as  they  yield  less  than  forty- 
one  million  foot-pounds  of  useful  effect  for  each  hun- 
dred pounds  of  good  anthracite  coal. 

But  there  is  valuable  information  in  the  above  table; 
and  the  experiments  which  it  shows  are,  in  spite  of  some 


MISCELLANEOUS.  143 

rather  wide  variations,  none  the  less  valuable  because 
of  the  internal  evidence  which  they  bear  of  being  a 
true  record  of  the  best  results  actually  obtained  under 
the  existing  circumstances. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  "duty"  of  the  same  kind  of 
coal  varied  largely  at  different  times  and  in  different  ex- 
periments; that  of  the  Sidney  coal  ranging  from  thirty- 
six  millions  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  to  forty 
millions  and  thirty-two  thousand,  and  that  of  the 
Mt.  Diablo  from  twenty-three  millions  to  twenty-eight 
millions  one  hundred  and  two  thousand  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-three  foot-pounds.  It  is  safe  to 
assume  in  general  that  the  shorter  the  duration  of  the 
experiment  and  the  fewer  the  number  of  experiments 
with  any  given  kind  of  coal,  the  less  reliable  will  be  the 
results  respecting  that  coal.  But  the  variations  in  this 
table  are  such  as  cannot  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for 
by  differences  in  the  duration  of  the  experiments  only. 
For  instance,  of  two  experiments  with  Sydney  coal, 
each  of  which  extended  over  one  month's  time,  one  gave 
a  duty  of  thirty-six  millions  six  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand,  and  the  'other  a  duty  of  thirty-eight  million 
foot-pounds.  It  is  therefore  evident,  either  that  the 
actual  quality  of  the  same  denomination  of  coal  varied 
considerably  in  the  different  experiments,  or  else,  as  in 
the  light  of  the  two  consecutive  experiments  of  Decem- 
ber first  and  second,  1873,  with  Welsh  coal,  seems  not 
improbable,  that  there  was  some  irregularity  in  the 
performance  of  the  engines  themselves,  which  was  due 
to  causes  that  are  not  explained  by  the  table. 

If,  now,  without  regard  to  the  duration  of  the  separate 
experiments  which  is  stated  in  only  twelve  out  of  the 


144  COAL  MINES. 

twenty-five  experiments  given  in  the  table,  we  take  for 
each  coal  the  sum  of  the  duties,  as  given  in  the  table 
for  all  the  experiments  with  that  particular  kind  of  coal, 
and  dividing  this  sum  by  the  number  of  experiments, 
thus  obtain  a  mean  value  for  the  duty  of  each  of  the 
different  kinds  of  coal;  if,  then,  we  compare  these  mean 
values  with  each  other,  assuming  for  purposes  of  com- 
parison that  the  value  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  is  unit}", 
and  stating  the  values  of  the  others  in  unity  and  deci- 
mals, we  obtain  the  following  relative  values  for  the 
various  coals  included  in  the  above  table : 

Mt.  Diablo  Coal  (Screenings) 1.000 

Seattle  Coal 1.171 

Sydney  Coal 1.502 

AVelsh  Coal 1.472 

Bellingham  Bay  Coal  (Screenings) 1.148 

Nanaimo  Coal 1.277 

Anthracite 1.546 

In  this  statement  of  the  relative  values  of  the  differ- 
ent coals,  the  figures  which  relate  to  the  Mt.  Diablo  and 
the  Sydney  are  evidently  the  most  reliable,  as  the  ex- 
periments with  these  two  varieties  were  the  most  numer- 
ous, there  having  been  eight  experiments  with  each. 
Next  in  order  of  reliability  comes  the  Welsh  coal  with 
four  experiments,  then  the  anthracite  with  two,  and 
finally  the  Seattle,  the  Bellingham  Bay  and  the  Nanaimo 
with  only  one  experiment  each. 

In  addition  to  the  preceding,  Mr.  Elliot  has  also  fur- 
nished the  following  results  of  some  very  recent  trials 
between  the  Seattle  (W.  T.)  and  the  Wellington  (Van- 
couver's Island)  coals  at  the  same  works.  These  ex- 


MISCELLANEOUS.  145 

peritnents  consist  of  five  clays'  run  with  eadli  of  the  two 
coals.  The  results  could  not  be  determined  in  foot- 
pounds, for  the  reason  that  the  pumps  were  working 
under  somewhat  variable  conditions  of  pressure-head, 
etc.  For  the  same  reason,  the  results  of  a  comparison 
between  any  two  single  days'  works  only  would  not  be 
very  reliable.  But  the  comparison  of  the  means  for 
the  whole  five  days  gives  probably  a  very  fair  result. 
The  experiments  were  as  follows: 

First,  with  "Wellington  coal,  at  $6 . 50  per  ton : 

11  hours  run,  cost $5 . 25 

12  "  "  "  5.80 

14  "  "  "  6.38 

11  "  "  «  4. Si- 
ll "  "  "  5.80 

Second,  with  Seattle  coal,  at  $6.50  per  ton: 

14   hours  run,  cost $8 . 00 

13}     "         "       "     7.40 

14       "        "       " 8.12 

13  "         "       "     '..    7.45 

13J     "         "       " 7.45 

It  appears  from  this  that  with  the  Wellington  coal 
the  pumps  ran  fifty-nine  hours,  at  a  total  cost  of  twenty- 
seven  dollars  and  seventy-four  cents,  or  an  average  cost 
of  47 .017  cents  per  hour  for  coal,  while  with  the  Seattle 
coal  they  ran  sixty-eight  hours,  at  a  total  cost  of  thirty- 
eight  dollars  and  forty-two  cents,  or  an  average  of  56 . 500 
cents  per  hour. 

This  shows  a  relative  difference  in  value  between 
these  two  coals  of  about  twenty  per  cent,  in  favor  of 
10 


146  COAL  MINES. 

the  Wellington  over  that  of  the  geattle  coal.  Or,  if  the 
Mt.  Diablo  coal  be  considered  as  unity,  the  Seattle 
being  1.171,  then  the  Wellington  will  be  1.407. 

The  following  experiments  made  under  the  steam- 
boilers  at  the  foundry  of  W.  T.  Garratt,  in  July,  1876, 
by  Mr.  H.  M.  McCartney,  for  the  Seattle  Coal  and 
Transportation  Company,  have  been  kindly  furnished 
me: 


M  IXC  ELL  A  NEO  US. 


147 


O 

(J 


P 
O 

m 

£ 


PH 
•^ 


O 
O 


O 

3 


* 


|S*«3 


is 


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10     05 

CO     CT 


<M     t~     Ci 


CO      -* 

T*        O 

co    co 


s 


II  i 


1^32 
I  ^    fr    & 


M     cS 

•  r—  ? 

t<-|      D 


3  02  - 


a  -  g 

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2  -^ 

POO 

a,  fl  3 

r3  a,  Pf 

**  'tt  a> 

a)  »  q 


P  5  53 

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1 

>..« 


CP 

al 


148  COAL  MINES. 

From  these  experiments,  the  Nanaimo  coal  would 
appear  to  be  rather  better  than  the  Wellington,  and  if 
we  still  suppose  the  Mfc.  Diablo  to  be  unity  and  the 
Seattle  to  be  1.171,  we  shall  now  find  the  Nanaimo  to 
be  1.335,  and  the  Wellington  1.295. 

A  comparative  trial  was  made  in  December,  1874,  as 
I  am  informed  by  the  President  of  the  Seattle  Coal  and 
Transportation  Company,  on  one  of  the  largest  ferry 
boats  in  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco,  between  Seattle  and 
Mt.  Diablo  coal,  with  the  following  result :  The  boat 
first  ran  fourteen  days  with  Mt.  Diablo  coal,  of  which 
it  consumed  in  that  time  three  hundred  and  seven  thou- 
sand and  three  hundred  and  eighty  pounds.  She  then 
ran  fourteen  days  with  Seattle  coal,  doing  the  same 
work  as  before,  with  a  consumption  of  two  hundred  and 
sixty-one  thousand  two  hundred  and  eleven  pounds. 
According  to  this  test,  the  value  of  the  Seattle  coal, 
that  of  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  being  unity,  is  1.177,  a 
result  which  agrees  very  closely  with  that  obtained  for 
these  two  coals  from  the  experiments  of  Mr.  Elliot. 

The  foregoing  are  all  the  definite  results  of  compara- 
tive experiments  of  this  kind  upon  any  considerable 
practical  working  scale  which  I  have  been  able  to  obtain. 

It  is  Avell  known  that  with  certain  coals,  the  Central 
Pacific  Railroad  Company  has  made  such  experiments 
with  care,  and  upon  an  extended  scale,  for  its  own  ben- 
efit, upon  its  locomotives  as  well  as  upon  its  steamboats. 
But  I  regret  to  say,  that  upon  applying  to  the  company 
for  the  definite  results  of  these  experiments,  with  the 
permission  to  make  them  public,  I  met  with  a  polite 
but  positive  refusal,  upon  the  ground  that,  as  this  com- 
pany is  the  largest  single  purchaser  of  coal  upon  this 


MISCELLANEOUS.  149 

coast,  they  did  not  deem  it  right  for  them  to  place  upon 
record  any  tests  or  experiments  from  which,  perhaps,  u 
standard  might  be  established  to  the  detriment  of  some 
and  the  benefit  of  others  who  are  dealers  in  coal. 

I  confess  that  I  am  not  able  myself  to  understand  the 
full  force  of  this  objection,  well  knowing,  as  I  do,  the  fact 
that  all  the  heavier  dealers  in  coal  in  San  Francisco 
already  know  the  relative  values  of  the  different  coals 
for  steam,  with  a  sufficiently  close  approximation  to  the 
truth  to  guide  their  action  in  the  matter  of  prices,  or  of 
anything  else  relating  to  the  market,  as  fully  and  as 
surely  as  any  mere  publication  of  the  exact  figures 
could  do  it. 

But,  though  I  could  obtain  no  definite  information 
from  the  railroad  company  itself,  I  may  state  that  I  have 
good  reason  to  believe  that  some  of  their  recent  experi- 
ments with  Seattle  coal  on  locomotives  have  shown  a 
difference,  as  between  it  and  the  Mt.  Diablo,  of  over 
thirty  per  cent,  in  favor  of  the  Seattle  coal.  How  reli- 
able these  experiments  may  be,  of  course  I  do  no!; 
know;  but  if  reliable  tests  have  furnished  this  result, 
then. from  the  results  already  given  of  the  tests  at  the 
Spring  Valley  Water  Works  and  on  the  ferry  boat, 
it  would  seem  to  follow,  either  that  the  Seattle  coal 
compares  more  favorably  with  Mt.  Diablo  for  loco- 
motive use  than  it  does  for  use  under  stationary  boilers 
and  on  steamboats,  or  else  that  there  has  been  within 
the  last  two  years  a  very  marked  improvement  in  the 
quality  of  the  coal  furnished  to  this  market  from  the 
Seattle  mines.  It  is  claimed  by  the  owners  of  the 
mines  that  the  latter  is  the  fact;  and  it  is  worth  noticing 
that  the  two  analyses  above  given,  the  one  by  Mr.  Hanks 


150 


CO  A  L  MINES. 


in  1875,  and  the  other  by  Falkenau  and  Hanks  in  1868, 
seem  to  add  probability  to  this  claim,  as  the  later  anal- 
ysis shows  only  6.70  per  cent,  of  water  against  11.66 
per  cent,  in  the  earlier  one. 

If,  now,  we  collect  in  tabular  form  the  results  of  all 
the  above  experiments,  we  shall  have  the  following  table 
of  relative  values  of  different  coals  for  steam,  the  value 
of  the  Mt.  Diablo  coal  being  assumed  as  unity: 

RELATIVE  VALUES  OF  DIFFERENT  COALS  FOR  STEAM. 


'Kiud  of  Coal. 

Value. 

Remarks. 

Mt.  Diablo  

1.000 
1.171 
1.502 
1.472 
1.148 
1.277 
1.546 
1.407 
1.335 
1.295 
1.177 
1.330 

Exper 

Exper 

Exper 
Proba 

iments  a 

ments  & 

ment  01 

ole  resul 

t  Spring 

t  Garratt 

i  Ferry  B 

ts  of  tests 

Valley  Water  Works. 

s  Foundry. 

oat. 
,  onC.P.R.  R. 

Seattle.. 

Sydney 

Welsh        

Bellingham  Bay. 
Nanaimo  

Anthracite  
Wellington  
Nauaimo 

Wellington  
Seattle 

Seattle  

The  cause  of  the  difference  between  the  results  ob- 
tained at  the  Water  Works  and  those  at  Garratt's  Foun- 
dry for  ihe  relative  values  of  the  Seattle,  Nanaimo,  and 
Wellington  coals,  I  cannot  explain,  but  merely  give  the 
figures  as  I  obtained  them. 


CONCLUSION. 

To  him  who  has  carefully  read  the  foregoing  pages, 
it  will  be  apparent  that  the  days  of  the  old  Mt.  Diablo 
mines  are  numbered.  Even  within  the  few  months 
which  have  elapsed  since  the  preparation  of  this  volume 
was  begun,  the  operations  of  these  mines  have  been  con- 
siderably curtailed.  At  the  time  of  the  strike  against  a 
reduction  of  wages  there  in  October,  1876,  the  Pitts- 
burg  Company  ceased  operations  upon  the  Clark  bed 
entirely,  and  withdrew  the  pump  from  their  lowest  level 
on  that  bed.  Since  that  time  their  mining  has  been  con- 
fined entirely  to  the  "Little  Vein,"  in  the  old  Eureka 
grcund,  and  to  the  Black  Diamond  bed.  It  is  not  un- 
likely that  they  may  hereafter  resume  their  work  upon 
the  Clark  bed  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  to  enable 
them  to  extract  the  coal  which  yet  remains  above  their 
present  lowest  level.  But  it  is  not  probable  that  they 
will  ever  sink  their  works  any  deeper  upon  this  bed. 

At  about  the  first  of  December,  1876,  the  Union  mine 
was  finally  closed,  its  pumps  and  machinery  taken  out, 
and  the  working  of  the  mine  entirely  abandoned.  It  is 
not  probable  that  the  Union  Company  will  ever  resume 
work. 

Of  the  old  companies,  therefore,  there  now  remain 
actually  at  work  only  the  Pittsburg  and  the  Black  Dia- 
mond companies.  The  mines  of  the  Black  Diamond 


152     •  COAL  MINES. 

Company  are  in  much  better  condition,  generally,  than 
that  of  the  Pittsburg,  and  will  undoubtedly  hold  out 
considerably  longer,  a  fact  which  is  largely  due  to  the 
sound  management  of  their  able  mining  superintendent, 
Mr.  Morgan  Morgans.  But,  in  the  face  of  their  neces- 
sarily heavy  and  constantly  increasing  costs  of  mining, 
they  too  must,  ere  many  years,  succumb  to  the  better 
quality,  and  eventually  the  lower  costs  of  production 
and  transportation  of  the  coals  of  Washington  Territory 
and  British  Columbia. 

Whether  the  hitherto  un worked  eastern  portion  of  the 
Mt.  Diablo  coal  field  can,  under  existing  circumstances, 
be  worked  at  a  profit,  remains  to  be  seen.  But  outside 
of  this,  there  is  no  other  coal  field  yet  known  in  Cali- 
fornia which  gives  reasonable  promise  of  being  able  to 
compete,  to  any  considerable  extent,  with  the  northern 
mines. 

Neither  is  it  probable  that  the  mines  of  Coos  Bay 
(the  only  ones  yet  worked  in  Oregon),  will  be  able  many 
years  longer  to  continue  work  at  a  profit  in  the  face  of 
the  Washington  Territory  coals.  For  though  the  dis- 
tance from  San  Francisco  to  Coos  Bay  is  only  about 
one-half  as  great  as  it  is  to  Puget  Sound,  yet  the  shal- 
low and  often  unsafe  character  of  the  bar  at  Coos  Bay, 
the  small  size  of  the  vessels  which  can  go  there  at  all, 
and  the  uncertainties  which  oftentimes  attend  the  move- 
ments of  even  these  small  vessels,  are  such  that  the 
rates  of  freight  from  Coos  Bay  have  generally  ranged 
as  high,  and  have  often  been  actually  higher  than  they 
were  from  Seattle;  while  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
a  company  which  owned  and  ran  its  own  suitable  steam 
colliers  could  transport  coal  from  Seattle  to  San  Fran- 


CONCLUSION.  .        153 

cisco  at  a  considerably  lower. cost  per  ton  than  they 
could  do  from  Coos  Bay.  Moreover,  the  cost  of  min- 
ing at  Coos  Bay  .is  greater  than  it  is  at  Seattle;  while  at 
the  same  time  the  quality  of  the  Coos  Bay  coal,  for  do- 
mestic purposes  as  well  as  for  steam,  is  decidedly  infe- 
rior to  that  of  the  more  northern  coals. 

It  is  unquestionably  to  the  mines  of  Washington 
Territory  and  of  British  Columbia,  that  this  Pacific 
Coast  must  look  hereafter,  both  for  its  chief  domestic 
and  its  nearest  and  most  reliable  foreign  supplies  of 
that  indispensable  necessity  of  all  civilized  communi- 
ties— a  good  article  of  coal. 


OF  THE     ' 

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